PANAJI: A school of interdisciplinary life sciences has been established at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Goa. Its immediate focus will be public health and on analysing the reasons behind occurrence of specific ailments among locals.
The IIT has already received approval from the central government to set up a life sciences laboratory.
Equipment worth Rs 2.7 crore is expected to be purchased to enable biology-related investigations and research. MTech and PhD students at IIT Goa will get the benefit of working in this new laboratory.
“The school of interdisciplinary life sciences will start out by focusing on public health. It will see an amalgamation of ideas from the fields of engineering and life sciences. Public health means creating awareness, education among people,” said IIT Goa director Prof BK Mishra.
He said researchers at the school will aim to find answers to questions such as why Goans are prone to certain types of kidney ailments or cancers. Mishra said an immediate focus of the school of interdisciplinary life sciences will be to study how Covid-19 growth and spread takes place locally. The school will also educate the general public about availability and effectiveness of vaccines, among other things, he said.
“More and more researchers are working now on drug development and mechanics of cells, etc. It is an important interdisciplinary programme. The school of interdisciplinary life sciences will draw expertise from different departments of the institute in the areas of life sciences, chemistry, biology, computer science, mechanical engineering,” Mishra said.
Though the school will have lab equipment worth Rs 2.7 crore available to researchers, together with that of other departments, the equipment to be utilised for the research will be of upto Rs 10 crore.
As IIT Goa is presently experiencing space constraints, still operating from its temporary campus at Farmagudi, the institute will have to wait until full-fledged degree programmes can be offered at the new school. “In the near future we will introduce BSc in biological science and a graduate programme in public health,” Mishra said.