NIT-Warangal idea makes it to White House venture

Amrita Didyala | TNN | Apr 21, 2020, 06:44 IST

Supporting innovation

HYDERABAD: A research proposal from an NIT, Warangal, academic to study effect of temperature and humidity on the crippling coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) has made it to a publicprivate effort led by the White House office of science and technology policy (OSTP) to understand the virus and help develop vaccines.
The proposal by Soumya Rath, assistant professor, department of biotechnology, NIT, Warangal, is among 27 active projects from across the world and the only one from India that has been included in the Covid-19 high performance computing consortium. Apart from the White House OSTP, the consortium includes the US department of energy and tech behemoth IBM.
Soumya Rath’s proposal, ‘Dependence of structure and dynamics of novel SARS-CoV-2 on temperature and humidity in the atmosphere’, aims to find out if the virus undergoes any (biophysical) changes with changes in atmospheric conditions. He submitted his proposal on April 15 “I have been given computational time by the consortium during which I will be running simulations. This study would open a new dimension in the characterisation of SARS-CoV-2 and future corona family class of viruses in prevention, categorisation and drug designing aspects,” the NIT researcher said.
“In the past too, the coronavirus family of viruses such as SARS and MERS has infected individuals. However, they gradually disappeared in the hot and humid conditions. Data obtained from countries with higher temperature and humidity also indicate a low propensity of infection. In this work, we will study the impact of atmospheric conditions, mainly the temperature and humidity, and try to unravel if the virus undergoes any biophysical changes with change in atmospheric conditions,” he said.
The initiative brings together the government, industry, and academia.