Fighting COVID-19: Eight high priority research projects get approval

NEW DELHI: In a quick response, India’s scientific community is developing critical technologies to aid the fight against COVID-19.

Bangalore Life Science Cluster, or BLiSC, a group of research institutions, said in a statement that two institutions have received approvals for eight such projects.

The NCBS (National Center for Biological Sciences) and inStem (Institute for Stem Cell Science and Regenerative Medicine) will undertake these projects, BLiSC said.

These eight projects aim to develop technologies that are affordable and usable in the field and require only minimal additional resources.

“The projects will deliver new disinfection technology, efficient sampling methodologies, new pooled testing methods, and technologies to screen potential drugs to treat COVID-19,” BLiSC said in the statement.

Besides NCBS and inStem, researchers from the University of Hyderabad and two Bengaluru-based institutions, Indian Institute of Science (IISc) and Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research (JNCASR) are also part of these projects.

The projects

• Rapid compressed sensing technology for COVID-19 pooled testing to overcome the shortage of reagents for the manufacturing of diagnostic test kits

• A rapidly deployable method of disinfection which can neutralise the coronavirus on contact with any surface

• Colour-based test for point-of-care COVID-19 detection

• A community questionnaire in multiple languages to assess the possibility of using the symptom of loss of sense-of-smell as a potential screening methodology

• A test for sense of smell to identify potential COVID-19 clusters and high-risk individuals

• A method to rapidly screen FDA-approved drugs that interfere with key steps of viral entry and processing

• To study whether antivirals already in use for other coronaviridae infections could be repurposed for COVID-19

• Mathematical models of COVID-19 spread that will fit to national-level quantitative data to provide recommendations on outbreak suppression

BLiSC said NCBS and inStem are “committed to making deliverables and ensuring timelines in the current situation”.

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• Coronavirus (COVID-19) Outbreak: Latest Updates

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