IIT Bombay alumnus donates funds for setting up biosafety level 3 lab on campus

The facility will be used to manufacture nanomaterials, tissue-engineered grafts, CAR-T constructs, drug nanoparticles, etc, for conducting clinical trials.  

The Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bombay signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with its alumnus Raj Nair (BTech, metallurgical and material science engineering, 1971) and its fellow alumni organisation IIT Bombay Alumni Association (IITBAA) for the construction of Biosafety Level 3 (BSL3) Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP) Lab at the Department of Biosciences and Bioengineering (BSBE).  

The agreement was signed by IIT Bombay Director Subhasis Chaudhari, Raj Nair and IITBAA chief executive officer Latha Venkitachalam. Nair has committed to donate a substantial undisclosed amount to IIT Bombay for the purpose. Nair has offered to also guide the researchers on the commercial aspects of the go-to-market strategy using his experience as a strategy consultant. 

The proposed facility located at BSBE department is expected to facilitate the progression of breakthrough translational research from the laboratory stage to the market by manufacturing materials required for human clinical trials. The facility will be used by the researchers in BSBE and other departments on campus to manufacture nanomaterials, tissue-engineered grafts, CAR-T constructs, drug nanoparticles, etc, for conducting clinical trials.  

Nair’s vision for this initiative is that India and IIT Bombay become a place where the output of research will result in bold and impactful solutions for the masses that facilitate a 10X improvement - better, cheaper, and faster - than the existing solutions anywhere in the world, so that thousands of patients suffering from difficult-to-treat diseases will benefit. 

GMP lab first-of-its kind facility at any of the IITs  

Rohit Srivastava Head, and Himanshu Patel, Chair Professor of the Department of Biosciences and Bioengineering at IIT Bombay said, “This is a first-of-its kind facility at any of the IITs in India and will help shorten the time it takes to conduct clinical trials for products from the Department of Biosciences and Bioengineering and rest of the institute.” 

IIT Bombay Director Subhasis Chaudhuri said, “There was a critical need for a GMP lab at the institute’s BSBE department and we are extremely grateful to Nair for tending to it. The establishment of this lab is a step towards our stated objective of being among the top 50 institutions in the world.” 

Meanwhile, Nair said, “I felt that the best way to give back to my alma mater is to raise the level of ambition of the faculty and students drastically by working towards goals that might seem hard to reach for ordinary people. The best way to give to the needy would be to bring to them, highly affordable breakthrough medical solutions to save lakhs of people by facilitating translation research efforts.” 

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