India and the United States agreed to enhance cooperation in development of low-cost diagnostic and therapeutic medical technologies.
At the India-US Summit on Translational Health Sciences, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) of the US and the Department of Biotechnology issued a joint statement to expand collaborative research, particularly in the medical research cluster in the vicinity of the national capital.
“The focus will be on infectious diseases, trauma, maternal and child health and chronic diseases like diabetes, hypertension and cardiovascular diseases,” Roderic Pettigrew, Director of the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering, told reporters here.
The Ministry of Science and Technology is setting up the country’s first-ever Translational Health Science and Technology Institute to facilitate development, optimisation and evaluation of technologies for public health.
“We have been developing drugs to cure diseases and the translational health research initiatives are aimed at developing efficient drug delivery systems,” a senior official of the Department of Biotechnology said here.
The collaboration will include organisation of workshops and meetings to share experiences and scientific information, direct links between appropriate centres of excellence, institutes and institutions in both countries.
“The two sides also signed a Letter of Intent on Translational Research expressing interest for cooperation,” NIH Director Elias A Zerhouni said.