Govt launches 'Drug Discovery Hackathon' to develop anti-COVID drug

New Delhi: Science and Technology Minister Harsh Vardhan and HRD Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal 'Nishank' on Thursday launched a 'Drug Discovery Hackathon' project and invited students and researchers to participate in the exercise, aimed at developing an anti-COVID drug.

This hackathon is a first-of-its-kind national initiative for supporting the drug discovery process and will see the participation of professionals, faculty, researchers and students from varied fields like Computer Science, Chemistry, Pharmacy, Medical Sciences, Basic Sciences and Biotechnology, a statement by the Ministry of Science and Technology said.

The initiative is being jointly carried out by the 'MHRD's Innovation Cell (MIC)', All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) and the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) of the Ministry of Science and Technology.

It is also supported by the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (CDAC), MyGov as well as private players.

The exercise consists of challenges that are posted as problem statements (an issue that needs to be addressed) and are based on specific drug discovery topics, which are open to participants to solve.

A total of 29 problem statements (PS) have been identified.

Professionals and researchers from across the world can participate in the hackathon, which will have three tracks.

The first track will primarily deal with drug design. The second track will deal with designing, optimising new tools and algorithms, which will have an immense impact on expediting the process of in-silico drug discovery.

There is also a third track called "Moon shot", which allows for working on problems that are 'out of the box' in nature.

The whole exercise is to be completed by April-May next year.

Vardhan stressed the need to establish a culture of computational drug discovery in the country.

Computational drug discovery is a strategy for accelerating and economising drug discovery and development process.

"In this initiative, MHRD's Innovation Cell and AICTE will focus on identifying potential drug molecules through the hackathon, while CSIR will take these identified molecules forward for synthesis and laboratory testing for efficacy, toxicity, sensitivity and specificity," Vardhan said.

Pointing out that drug discovery is a complex, expensive, arduous and time-consuming process, he said while clinical trials of a few re-purposed drugs for COVID-19 are underway, it is also important to find other suitable re-purposed drugs and at the same time continue working on new drug discovery to develop specific drugs against COVID-19.

"In-silico drug discovery, which utilises computational methods such as machine learning (ML), AI (artificial intelligence) and Big Data will help in accelerating this process," Vardhan added.

Nishank said the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) and AICTE have huge experience in organising hackathons but for the first time, it is using a hackathon model for tackling a great scientific challenge.

"More importantly, this initiative is open for researchers, faculty across the globe as we are keen on attracting international talent to join and support our efforts," he said.

Prof K VijayRaghavan, Principal Scientific Advisor to the government, said the hackathon will help India establish a new model for expediting the drug discovery process.

"The hackathon consists of challenges that are posted as problem statements and are based on specific drug discovery topics, which are open to participants to solve.

"At the end of each phase, successful teams will be rewarded. The 'lead' compounds identified at the end of the third phase will be taken forward for experimental-level at CSIR and other interested organisations," VijayRaghavan said.

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