Kerala should give more importance to virology research since the State faces a higher risk of virus-related incidence compared to other parts of the country, Dr Vinod Kumar Paul, Member, NITI Ayog, has said.
“Of late, Kerala has been an entry point for various viral diseases. This part of our geography has high risk of diseases like Nipah and COVID,” Dr Paul said here on Saturday while speaking at the inauguration of the Department of Biotechnology-Scientific Infrastructure Access for Harnessing Academia University Research Joint Collaboration (DBT-SAHAJ) at the Rajiv Gandhi Centre for Biotechnology (RGCB).
Dr Rajesh S. Gokhale, secretary, DBT, Government of India, was also present at the function.
Lauding the initiatives of RGCB in virology research, Dr Paul said the institution had to design additional programmes in this field urgently. “Considering the demographic transition-related health challenges faced by Kerala, the State should make more efforts in the area of geriatric care and could think about creating diagnostics that are useful in the primary care centres. The initiatives made by the State can be followed by the rest of the country,” he said.
Urging researchers to pursue excellence, Dr Paul said the country wanted relentless hard work.
In his address, Dr Gokhale, emphasised the urgent need for achieving further growth in the bio-manufacturing domain in the country by leveraging new technologies. “Innovate or be left behind if India fails to recognise the AI and machine learning needs,” he said.
“Since DBT is a small community, it has to grow by increasing the human resources. We have around 340 scientists across all the labs. We have to increase the student intake and strengthen the faculties,” Dr Gokhale added.
RGCB Director Prof. Dr Chandrabhas Narayana was among those present. DBT-SAHAJ is a facility for the Mass Spectrometry-based Proteomics, Metabolomics, and Lipidomics platforms.
