About 127 students were conferred degrees at the 39th convocation of Sree Chitra Tirunal Institute for Medical Sciences and Technology. DBT’s initiative will include genome sequencing of bacterium samples to develop a central repository of bacterium strains
The Department of Biotechnology (DBT) is in the process of developing a catalogue of existing and emerging resistant mutations of Mycobacterium tuberculosis (MTB) by performing whole genome sequencing of more than 30,000 MTB samples from active TB patients across the country to develop a central repository of both the database and MTB strains in India, Secretary, Department of Biotechnology, Rajesh S. Gokhale, has said.
This would help to map the genetic diversity of pulmonary and extrapulmonary MTB isolates and their associated treatment outcomes. The initiative would identify associations of mutations of MTB to drug-resistance patterns and provide new means of identification through AI-based technologies, Dr. Gohkale, who was the Guest of Honour at the 39th convocation of Sree Chitra Tirunal Institute for Medical Sciences and Technology (SCTIMST), said, during his address on Saturday.
