MURTI- a cutting-edge lab for research on biotechnology, drug discovery comes up in GITAM

Visakhapatnam: A state-of-the-art laboratory MURTI, for conducting "groundbreaking research" in areas of biotechnology, material sciences and cancer biology, has come up GITAM campus in Visakhapatnam.

Christened 'Multidisciplinary Unit of Research on Translational Initiatives' (MURTI), the research infrastructure is housed on the campus of GITAM.

The name of the laboratory is a tribute to the GITAM founder MVVS Murti, a former Lok Sabha member who died in 2018.

MURTI is equipped with state-of-the-art instruments, including four sophisticated equipment -- liquid chromatography mass spectrometry (LCMS), high-resolution mass spectrometry (HSMS), scanning electron microscope (SEM), and 500 MHz NMR.

S Chandrasekhar, secretary of the Department of Science and Technology (Ministry of Science and Technology) who inaugurated the second phase of MURTI said such an ecosystem would enable start-ups while suggesting that GITAM could allow the lab to be used by local universities and institutions for a nominal fee.

The first phase of MURTI was inaugurated in February this year, where R&D work will take place in the fields of biotechnology, microbiology, food science and technology, chemistry, physics, environmental sciences and engineering.

Research in clusters

The vision behind setting up MURTI is to create a common platform for faculty and students of GITAM to discuss issues of national and global importance and come up with sustainable solutions, the institution said.

MURTI will focus on research in clusters, including cancer biology, material sciences, infectious biology, environmental and atmospheric sciences, chemical ecology, infectious biology, drug discovery, and computational linguistics, a spokesperson of GITAM said.

The launch of MURTI coincides with GITAM's sizable investment of Rs 45 crore for the financial year 2022-23, with plans to set up MURTI centres across two other campuses -- in Hyderabad and Bengaluru -- as well to boost research culture.

In addition to conducting groundbreaking research, MURTI will be pivotal in drug discovery. One of the other key projects at MURTI is the development of machine translation tools for some of the indigenous tribal languages of this region.

DST secretary Chandrasekhar, when asked how can such labs benefit society and the scientific and research community at large, said, "If some private university has spent that much money, now we also encourage this and that local universities like Andhra University, small colleges in and around, JNTU (Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University), Kakinada -- they all could come and use this facility against a small fee."

Additionally, MURTI is partnering with leading biotech industries and has submitted grant applications to DST, DBT, and BIRAC for prospective collaborations, it said.

SATHI Scheme

In the last three months, about 150-200 applications have been received under the SATHI scheme.

Under DST's SATHI (Sophisticated Analytical and Technical Help Institute), science and technology infrastructure facility can be set up to be readily made accessible to academia, start-ups, manufacturing units, industries, and research and development (R&D) labs.

He said the Centre encourages private universities to apply for the SATHI programme (through consortium call) so that they could create such facilities for the local ecosystem and also encourage private industries to put some money into it.

"The government has limited labs. We have about 1,000 labs, national institutes and central institutes, but these do not cater to all researchers. Today, we are happy that GITAM has taken the initiative to build best of the analytical facilities," Chandrasekhar, who is also a reputed scientist, said.

Inputs from PTI