India and Wellcome Trust inject $141m to support Indian biomedical researchers
This article was originally published in Clinica
Executive Summary
In a bid to support and develop its advanced biomedical research cohort, India’s department of biotechnology (DBT) is teaming up with the Wellcome Trust on a scheme that will inject £80m (US$141m) over five years to support researchers at all career levels. The Biomedical Research Career Programme will support 75 fellowships per year in the biomedical, clinical and veterinary research segments. The scheme will help to keep some of the best research brains in the country and enable the country’s increasing numbers of centres of excellence to become “comparable to the best” worldwide, according to Dr MK Bhan, secretary of the DBT. The initiative will be delivered by the New Delhi-based Wellcome Trust/DBT India Alliance, an independent, public charitable trust. The Wellcome Trust has a long-standing affiliation with India. It currently funds 20 international senior research fellows based in India working on fields including neuroscience, cell biology, cancer diagnostics, genetics and diseases of the developing world. It also funds R&D related to India’s public health system, chronic diseases and mother and child mortality.