HRD Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal 'Nishank' on Friday felicitated the team of scientists from IIT Delhi involved in the development of COVID 19 probe - free Real-time PCR Diagnostic Kit.
This is the first probe-free assay for COVID-19 approved by ICMR and it will be useful for specific and affordable high throughput testing. This assay can be easily scaled up as it does not require fluorescent probes. The team is targeting large scale deployment of the kit at affordable prices with suitable industrial partners as soon as possible.
Speaking on the occasion the HRD Minister said that our Prime Minister Narendra Modi has invited Scientists, students and researchers to come forward to combat COVID 19 and in response to this clarion call, all the premier institutions under HRD Ministry came to the
forefront and have done a commendable work and are contributing to their best in order to combat the situation arising of COVID-19.
HRD Secretary Amit Khare, IIT Delhi Director Ramgopal Rao and a team of Scientists of IIT Delhi led by Prof. Vivekananad Perumal and Prof. Manoj Menon were present in the meeting.
The Minister appreciated the efforts of IIT Delhi in developing a testing kit at a very low cost for the people of India. The kit will not only empower healthcare services but also support the government in the time of crisis.
He congratulated the Researchers of IIT Delhi Kusuma School of Biological Sciences (KSBS), who have developed a detection assay for COVID-19 which has now been approved by ICMR.
He was delighted to know that the assay has been validated at ICMR with a sensitivity and specificity of 100 percent.
This makes IITD the first academic institute to have obtained ICMR approval for a real-time PCR-based diagnostic assay.
Pokhriyal highlighted that the Ministry of HRD will provide all possible to the institutions for their research initiatives.
He said that the project like these are in line with Make in India initiative of the Government.