IIT Alumni Council to partner with ICT Mumbai for MegaLab

IIT Alumni Council announced that it will partner with ICT-Mumbai in the MegaLab initiative. ICT Mumbai has now become the second institutional partner in the MegaLab initiative after Mumbai University. This partnership will help upgrade the conventional RTqPCR kit manufacturing and testing lines to meet RTPCR2.0 targets on kit transportation and storage at room temperature, lower cost per test (through lower consumption of kit material) and per sample (through higher pooling ratio) and ability to manufacture the test kits and test kit constituents in large continuous process plants, the institute stated.

“IIT Alumni Council is very happy to welcome ICT Mumbai as its institutional partner for the
MegaLab and RTPCR 2.0 initiative. MegaLab Mumbai will serve as the first key component of
the national infrastructure for testing of infectious diseases. The process development and
technology strengths of ICT Mumbai, their alumni, students and faculty will accelerate our path
to self-sufficiency and global supremacy in this field . We are very pleased to partner with
eminent institutions in pursuance of our nation building agenda,” said Ravi Sharma, President ,
IIT Alumni Council .

“The students and alumni of ICT Mumbai and have always taken pride in research orientation
of the institute. MegaLab Mumbai and RTqPCR 2.0 are excellent initiatives by IIT Alumni Council
in the fight against COVID19. It will meet the immediate need for mass testing though reliable ,
faster and cheaper genetic diagnostics – in addition to becoming a showpiece for indigenous
technology and engineering capability.” Said Prof Anirudha Pandit, an alumnus of IIT, member
of the Board of Governors of IIT Bombay and Vice Chancellor of ICT Mumbai.

IIT Alumni Council, along with partner organizations has helped rapidly deployed innovative
appropriate technologies to help meet the health crisis perpetuated by the c19 pandemic. These include AI based digital x-ray systems, contactless c19 isolation centre configurations, IOT systems for virtual hospitals, pool testing algorithms for RTPCR, c19 test bus, open indigenous technology stacks for testing like Kodoy and ultracompact indigenous ultrasound scanners with portable gene sequencing so that the entire functionality of the Covid bus launched on Maharashtra Day can now be fitted in a cab. Several companies are developing 100 per cent indigenous kits – in both liquid and solid state form – under the Kodoy Open Source Stack license which are in various stages of manufacturing and approvals.