Assam: IIT Guwahati establishes Centre of Excellence for healthcare delivery among Rural Communities

Guwahati:  Indian Institute of Technology, Guwahati (IITG) has set up a medical research centre to cater to the needs of rural India with a focus on healthcare delivery to the last-mile population.

The multidisciplinary initiative, in line with the Centre's National Education Policy, 2020 is a single umbrella where professors, researchers, entrepreneurs, doctors, and students from multiple departments will work together for research and innovation in the domain of healthcare innovation, an official release issued by the institute said on Monday.

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The centre is situated at the Centre of Nanotechnology and Jyoti and Bhupat Mehta School of Health Sciences and Technology of IIT, Guwahati.

The initiative has been led by the Departments of Chemistry, Chemical Engineering, Biosciences and Bioengineering, Electronics and Electrical Engineering, and Design and Mathematics, among others.

Elaborating on the Indian Council of Medical Research and Department of Health Research (ICMR-DHR) Centre of Excellence for Biomedical Device and Diagnostics Innovation and Commercialisation, IITG Director Prof T G Sitharam said it will work towards realising the vision of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Atmanirbhar Bharat' in the domain of healthcare technology development.

The innovations proposed in the centre are expected to cater to the societal needs related to diagnostics and healthcare delivery, especially in rural India, he said.

The key objectives of the centre will be to detect biomarkers to detect various non-communicable diseases (NCDs) such as chronic kidney disorder, post-diabetic complications, liver or pancreatic malfunctions, cardiac illnesses, and urinary tract infections.

The centre will also develop frugal point-of-care diagnostic devices for the collection, storage, security, and analysis of the data specific to rural India, and develop three indigenous products in the domain of healthcare that can be commercially successful in the near future and innovate indigenous alternatives to healthcare devices.

In the next few decades, especially keeping the post-pandemic scenario in perspective, the focus of healthcare innovation would be to develop frugal technologies to cater to the needs of the last mile population, Head of Jyoti and Bhupat Mehta School of Health Sciences and Technology Prof Dipankar Bandyopadhyay said.

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