To change the course of academia and clinical research by implementing the dual M.D. PhD programme along with the M.D. M.Tech programme, Indian Institute of Science (IISc) received largest single private donation of INR 425 crore (equivalent to about USD 60 million) for the project to help build an 800-bed multi-speciality hospital.
Funded by Susmita and Subroto Bagchi, along with Radha and N.S. Parthasarathy will nurture future generations into the field of science and research. After its collective donation, for IISc, the hospital named as the Bagchi-Parthasarathy Hospital.
Prof. G Rangarajan, Director, IISc said, “In this era of pandemics, its absolutely imperative for India to develop a strong base in clinical research in this country. But that’s easier said than done. The modern day cutting edge medical research involves the confluence of three disciplines, the basic sciences, engineering and technology and clinical sciences. Medical schools in the US and elsewhere have been very successful in building together these three disciplines to achieve tremendous breakthroughs. A prime example of such a breakthrough involving biology, nano engineering and clinical science is the development of mRNA vaccine for COVID-19.”
“This vaccine was developed based on research conducted at the University of Pennsylvania Medical School, and this has had a huge impact on the lives of billions of people around the world. This demonstrates that a medical school can have a global impact. Unfortunately, we have been unable to establish such university based medical schools in India because these disciplines work in silos in India and often they are practiced in different institutions here. So this hampers the performance of high end medical research in the country. This is where the IISc comes in. Indian Institute of Science was established 112 year ago and is now the pre-eminent research institution for science and engineering in the country,” He added.
