1. Proposed network of integrated genomic sequencing labs in India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and select African countries that will help scale up global monitoring of emerging SARS-CoV2 strains and guide global R&D efforts for COVID diagnostics, vaccines and therapeutics

2. Guided by MoHFW’s National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), CSIR-IGIB and CCMB will act as the main technical coordinators for this project and work closely with India’s four science and technology clusters

3. Other international partners include WHO-SEARO and Institute of Pathogen Genomics, which houses the recently launched Africa Pathogen Genomics Initiative (Africa PGI) 

£700,000 (for the India-based labs only; foreign labs to be costed separately, pending expression of interest by Wellcome Trust)

CSIR Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology (CSIR-IGIB) and Centre for Cellular & Molecular Biology (CCMB)

India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and select African countries

Dr. Anurag Agrawal

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Conduct surveillance of infectious diseases by waste water-based epidemiology, as well as surveillance for zoonotic vector borne diseases through analysis of tick-wildlife-human system

Objectives:

  1.  To identify various tick species and their host specificities. Use microscopy to create a repository of images to facilitate easy morphological identification of tick species

  2. To standardize molecular methods to identify tick species, to validate morphological methods, and create a repository which is absent in India and then validate it globally

  3. To reveal the microbiome of tick species, which is crucial in understanding the dynamics of emerging infectious diseases, so that it contributes to strategies on combat tick borne diseases of wildlife origin

International partners: 

  Research groups from Bangladesh (Jahangirnagar University Savar, Dhaka), Sri Lanka (University of Colombo) and Nepal (National Trust for Nature Conservation) have agreed to participate in the proposed surveillance program of infectious diseases

£1,550,000

Centre for Cellular & Molecular Biology (CCMB)

India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Nepal

Dr. Rakesh Mishra

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