IIT Guwahati aims at boosting research in therapeutics, diagnostics, stem cells, public health, and health data analytics

IIT Guwahati has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Mehta Family Foundation (MFF), Houston, Texas, USA, to establish the ‘Jyoti and Bhupat Mehta School of Health Sciences and Technology.’ This New School at IIT Guwahati will commence academic activities during the current academic year..

Addressing the event, Prof. Ajay Kumar Sood, Principal Scientific Adviser, Government of India, said: “I congratulate IIT Guwahati and the Mehta Family Foundation for this remarkable initiative. At this juncture, I can clearly foresee that the School of Health Sciences and Technology would host a number of modern academic curricula, centers of excellence, incubators, and research laboratories for the advancements in multi-disciplinary research and education, which is presently needed in the country.”

The Jyoti and Bhupat Mehta School of Health Sciences and Technology has launched a new Master’s and PhD programmes in Health Sciences and Technology from this academic year. The first batch of 20 MTech students in the stream of Biomedical Science and Engineering will be admitted to IIT Guwahati through GATE 2022.

Highlighting the initiatives to be taken up by the New Centre, Prof TG.Sitharam, Director, IIT Guwahati, said: “The institute profoundly thanks the Mehta Family Foundation for their generous support towards establishing this second new programme on Health Sciences and Technology at IIT Guwahati, which will inculcate cutting-edge education and research in the areas related to therapeutics, diagnostics, prosthesis, implantation, bioinformatics, molecular biology, regenerative medicine, stem cells, public health, and health data analytics, among many others. The impact of such translational education and research is rather far-reaching since they will not only fulfil the demands of having sufficiently qualified postgraduates in the service of the nation but also catalyze the research output matching the global standards.”

This new multi-disciplinary programme on Health Sciences and Technology at IIT Guwahati has been designed based on National Education Policy (NEP) 2020. The new programme will emphasize extending training in both theoretical as well as hands-on perspectives, which will enable the development of academic leaders with a strong scientific foundation alongside having the capability to translate the ideas into biomedical technologies.

The newly established school aims to train the students in topics related to Health Science and Technology, with the emphasis on courses from other disciplines of science and engineering such as Biosciences and Bioengineering, Electronics and Electrical Engineering, Chemical Engineering, Mathematics and Statistics, and Design.

The IIT Guwahati school aims at:

• Fostering research and innovation.
• Establishing new standards of pedagogy and hands-on training methods in the areas related to the health sciences.
• Creating a niche of startups and MSMEs who will provide evidence-based affordable healthcare technologies.
• Promoting biomedical and public health education.

This school will have highly-qualified full-time faculty alongside having the guidance of the associated faculty members from diverse disciplines within IIT Guwahati, who have experience in nurturing the existing Masters’ and PhD programme in the Engineering, Science, and Design departments.