Dr. Rajesh Gokhale, Secretary, Department of Biotechnology, MoS&T, GoI, visited CSIR-Indian Institute of Integrative Medicine, Jammu, today. Dr. Alka Sharma, Sr. Adviser, DBT, GoI accompanied him. Dr. Zabeer Ahmed, Director, CSIR-IIIM, in one-to-one meeting with the Secretary, DBT apprised him about DBT funded initiatives at CSIR-IIIM and currently on going major research activities.

Dr. Saurabh Saran, Principal Investigator, BIRAC-BioNEST program at CSIR-IIIM made a brief presentation and gave an update about the ‘BioNEST Bio-incubation Centre’ which has been setup at CSIR-IIIM, under sponsorship from BIRAC, DBT. Pertinently, the BioNEST Bioincubation Centre was inaugurated by Dr. Jitendra Singh, Union Minister of State (I/C) for Science and Technology, Minister of State (I/C) of Earth Sciences, Minister of State in the PMO, Ministry of Personnel, Pensions, Public Grievances & DoAE, Department of Space and Vice President, CSIR, at Jammu, on 23^rd April, 2022. The objective of this incubator is to ignite the entrepreneurship mindset and to nurture start-up culture among youth, local farmers and entrepreneurs of Jammu & Kashmir. The incubator will offer intellectual, infrastructural support and do hand holding of startups to create their own business and livelihood. This would help in developing successful business ventures that would create jobs and generate wealth in the J&K region. Presently, eight startups have registered in this incubator and further registrations are underway. The incubator is regularly holding roadshows, hackathons, city camps and similar initiatives, to create awareness among the youth.

Dr. Rajesh Gokhale also interacted with the Heads of various departments and Scientists working in different research areas at CSIR-IIIM. Issues pertaining to pending GMP manufacturing transport license of Cannabis also deliberated upon, besides the development of drugs for sickle cells anemia, Alzheimer and cancer pain management. Innovations in hair regeneration and stem cell research work at CSIR-IIIM were  also part of the discussion. Dr. Gokhale stressed on the fact that scientists and startups should develop products and processes backed by IPR. Issues pertaining to IPR policies were also discussed.

Dr. Zabeer Ahmed, Director, CSIR-IIIM assured Secretary, DBT, of CSIR-IIIM’s commitment to fully utilize the support of DBT’s BIRAC-BioNEST programme to promote and strengthen the startup ecosystem in Jammu and Kashmir and adjoining states.