Covid-19: IIT Alumni Council, Mumbai University to partner for MegaLab Mumbai initiative

According to a release by the alumni council, MegaLab Mumbai is the biggest COVID-19 initiative of the IIT Alumni Council, which aims to help design and establish the largest genetic testing laboratory for COVID-19 and other infectious diseases with an end-to-end capacity to carry out over 10 million tests per month.

The IIT Alumni Council Friday announced that the alumni body will be partnering with Mumbai University for the MegaLab Mumbai Initiative.

According to a press release by the alumni council, MegaLab Mumbai is the biggest Covid-19 initiative of the IIT Alumni Council, which aims to help design and establish the largest genetic testing laboratory for Covid-19 and other infectious diseases with an end-to-end capacity to carry out over 10 million tests per month.

Keeping in mind the opportunity to replicate with smaller capacities at other places in India and in other developing counties, the MegaLab will comprise of three independent lines, namely 1 million tests per month (tpm), 3 million tpm and 6 million tpm.

The release stated that a global competition is being launched to identify sources for equipment, consummable manufacturers and operating partners. The lab has also proposed to work with National Centre for Nanosciences and Nanotechnology and the Innovation and Incubation center of Mumbai University. The alumni of IITs and alumni companies will work with the students, faculty and alumni of Mumbai University.

“IIT Alumni Council is honoured to have Mumbai University as it’s partner for enabling world class healthcare infrastructure in Mumbai for testing and treatment of infectious diseases including Covid19. The students, faculty and research infrastructure of Mumbai University will act as the research backbone of the MegaLab project . MegaLab will be based on the end-to-end Kodoy indigenous technology stack and will have adequate capacity for testing the entire population of Mumbai for infectious diseases, each month ” said Ravi Sharma, President of IIT Alumni Council. “This partnership will ensure the consistency, speed, quality and scale of MegaLab testing,” he added .

Commenting on the partnership, Professor Suhas Pednekar, the Vice Chancellor of University of Mumbai said, “With a 160+ years history of excellence in academics, University of Mumbai has been a pioneer in research work across multiple disciplines. Building on its strength in biotechnology and related research areas such as biosciences, it is now chartering a new path by partnering in a path breaking initiative promoted by the IIT Alumni Council to create one of the largest labs ever built for molecular diagnostic and genetic testing in Mumbai with a capacity of 10 Million RTPCR tests per month.”