Institute of Translational Research to come up in Hyderabad

DESARAJU SURYA
Hyderabad: Yet another world-class research institution will come up in Andhra Pradesh in the next three years.
The Institute of Translational Research (ITR), an autonomous institute being “facilitated” by the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB), will be set up on a 184-acre site at Rangapur village under Bibinagar mandal, close to the state capital Hyderabad. The state government has allotted the site to CCMB for establishing the Rs 1000 crore institute that will focus on various areas of biological research like cell biology, developmental biology, stem-cell biology and cancer biology.
The ITR’s objective will be to carry the research results directly to the (patient’s) bed, according to CCMB sources. The proposed institution, for which the Planning Commission of India has given its in principle nod, will collaborate with the Hyderabad-based Nizam’s Institute of Medical Sciences to carry the research results from “the bench to the bed,” the sources said.
The NIMS is shortly opening its second campus at Bibinagar and it will be tied-up with the ITR, the sources said. The Council of Scientific and Industrial Research has also approved the ITR project.
The Government of India has already sanctioned Rs 360 crore towards, what the CCMB director Lalji Singh called, the “Mega Project.”
“The institute will give a boost to India's image as an emerging hub of biotech and pharma research. India has over 4,694 anthropologically well-defined populations. We need to leverage this as it can provide access to vital research for studying gene-environment interactions in relation to a disease and developing personalised medicine,” Lalji Singh said.
ITR is a totally “new concept,” according to Singh. “The modern institution and the associated medical school will anchor the application of knowledge of modern biology into clinical care,” he added.
It will also take up collection and analysis of large amounts of clinical data, development of personalised medicine, cultivation of stem cell populations, molecular diagnostics and design and development of targeted delivery systems. On the laboratory front, the institute will match its counterparts in the US, CCMB sources said. It will have the latest tools with a budget of Rs 300 crore plus hospital equipment worth another Rs 300 crore.
The ITR will offer challenging opportunities for about 1000 scientists and staff besides about 500 students, the sources added.
As many internationally-reputed pharmaceutical and biotech companies are located in Hyderabad, the Andhra Pradesh government pushed for the ITR project and succeeded in bagging it, beating Bihar in the race.
“The presence of ITR will attract multi-national companies engaged in clinical and genomic research to the state,” a top official in the Chief Minister’s Office said. With the required land in place, the “first hurdle” for the prestigious project has been cleared. Chief Minister Y S Rajasekhara Reddy is now using his good offices in New Delhi to get other clearances for the project and hasten its establishment, the CMO official said.