The Institute of Microbial Technology (IMTECH), Chandigarh celebrated its Foundation Day on Jan. 24th, 2011 by organizing several events, the most important among those being the visit of Hon’ble Shri Pawan Kumar Bansal, the Union Minister for Parliamentary Affairs, Science and Technology & Earth Sciences and Vice President CSIR. After assuming his charge as Minister of Science and Technology this was Mr. Pawan Kumar Bansal’s first visit to any CSIR laboratory.
During his visit Shri Bansal was briefed about the R&D activities being carried out at the Institute by Dr. Girish Sahni, Director, IMTECH who along with his scientific team made a detailed presentation to the Minister. Mr. Bansal was taken around the important facilities and laboratories of the Institute and he also inaugurated a new Biopharmaceuticals Facility in the Institute. In his address to the IMTECH staff, he praised world class quality of research at IMTECH. He cited the example of cardiovascular medicines recently discovered by IMTECH to reassure that a great scientific future awaits IMTECH. He suggested that new biotechnological methods should be developed for controlling the quality of deteriorating water and scientific institutions like IMTECH can make an amicable change in remediation of polluted water through innovative biotechnological approaches.
Through his address to IMTECH scientists and staff he urged to the scientists all across the CSIR to develop new technologies for obtaining the overarching objective of global inclusive growth. He also ensured that the Ministry of Science and Technology will provide an enabling environment so that this nation can be taken forward on the path of development. Furthermore he lauded the capabilities of CSIR and especially IMTECH for bringing down cost of important medicines and to make them available to all. In his address to the scientists and staff of the Institute Mr. Bansal spoke of a unique respect for science and scientists in this country.
The other highlight of the day was the Foundation Day Lecture by Prof. S.K. Brahmachari, Director General, Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, New Delhi on the topic ”Open Innovation: A novel approach to collaborative research for global good”.
Prof. Brahmachari in his scholarly talk said that India can move forward on the path of development through Open Innovations and he cited the model of successfully launched OSDD Programme. He insisted that more and more scientists should adopt open source drug discovery like programmes for making healthcare affordable for everyone. He also showed how OSDD has successfully re-annotated Mycobacterium tuberculosis (the causative agent of tuberculosis) genome and how OSDD has laid down the metabolic pathways through open collaborations in a short period of time. He also suggested that OSDD has identified 17 potential drug targets out of 4000 mycobacterial proteins through computational capabilities.
Dr. Girish Sahni, Director IMTECH welcomed the guests and then presented the Annual Report of the Institute. He highlighted the achievements of IMTECH during the last year through a formal presentation which was greatly appreciated by the audience. He mentioned that last year was very fruitful as one its technology on new generation clot-buster(s) was transferred to Nostrum Pharmaceuticals, USA and also work on phase II on the technology on know-how for production of clot-specific streptokinase which was transferred earlier to Nostrum Pharmaceuticals Inc., USA is near completion.
Throughout the day, several students and researchers from other Institutions visited the labs of the Institute to know about the research being carried out at this premier national lab. The talk well attended and well received, was presided over by Prof. N. Sathyamurthy, Director, IISER, Mohali.
On this occasion, the Institute also rewarded some of its meritorious technical staff for their outstanding performances.