covid – The KGP Chronicle

Global Launch of COVIRAP – Nucleic acid-based Point-of-Care Diagnostic Device for COVID-19 and beyond

Highlights

A generic step-wise isothermal nucleic acid-based testing technology for the rapid diagnostics of pathogenic infections including but not limited to SARS-CoV-2 in individuals.
Nasal Swab/ Saliva to result from integration in about 45 minutes in a highly affordable pre-programmable portable device developed by the team, without requiring any separate facility for RNA extraction.
Kit supplemented with a free smartphone app to facilitate unambiguous results interpretation and automated dissemination to the patients. The test may be performed by unskilled personnel outside the controlled lab with no intermediate manual intervention between sample loading and result dissemination.
Patents filed in the India, USA, several other countries, and the foreign filing license has been granted recently.
The unique trade-off between the high scientific standards of advanced molecular diagnostics with the elegance of common rapid tests for underserved community care.

IIT Kharagpur has successfully commercialized its flagship healthcare product – COVIRAP – the novel diagnostic technology for infectious diseases including COVID-19 and beyond. The product developed by lead researchers Professor Suman Chakraborty, Dr. Arindam Mondal and their research group has been licensed for commercialization to the Rapid Diagnostic Group of Companies, India and Bramerton Holdings LLC, USA.

Bramerton Holdings has signed a record deal for securing global rights for commercially disseminating the COVIRAP technology developed at IIT Kharagpur in various geographical locations outside the territory of the Indian subcontinent. Rapid Diagnostic has also initiated adapting the COVIRAP technology platform for COVID-19 and tuberculosis, in collaboration with IIT Kharagpur.

The research team has now developed a more advanced version of COVIRAP using a step-wise isothermal nucleic acid testing technology for the rapid diagnostics of pathogenic infections including SARS-CoV-2 in individuals. The COVID-19 diagnostic test can be conducted directly from human swab samples in the portable device developed by the team, without requiring any separate facility for RNA extraction. The results can be made available within 45 minutes of obtaining the patient sample. The kit has also been also supplemented with a free smartphone app to facilitate unambiguous results interpretation and automated dissemination to the patients.

Recognizing the impact of the COVIRAP technology in meeting the long-standing demands of high-quality community-level testing, IIT Kharagpur has further initiated the procedure of deploying this product for on-campus use to detect possible novel coronavirus infection.

“The above move has taken place at a critical juncture when the recent spurt in COVID-19 infection, commonly known as the second wave, has been threatening to spread more rapidly than ever before. Moreover, the commercialization of COVIRAP will initiate complete indigenization and availability of a large range of affordable healthcare products in the Indian market as well as deep trenches of a large global market that is literally starving for the need of such technology. COVIRAP promises its reach to the grass-root level in catering to the needs of the last person of the society,” opined Director Prof. V K Tewari.

For use of the test, the nasal, as well as oral swab samples, are diluted in a solution and tested in the portable device by mixing with reagents that are supplied in a pre-mixed form. The test runs automatically in the device without intermediate manual intervention.

“We have conducted field trials for running the tests with the help of unskilled personnel outside controlled laboratory ambiance, with no compromise in quality of the test outcome. The entire sample-to-result procedure may be conducted in the portable device, virtually anywhere and with minimal training thus making the process of testing more effective for community-level screening and early detection of any emerging infection outbreak. This may act as a key to arrest community level spreading of the infection,” remarked Prof. Suman Chakraborty.

Nucleic acid-based point-of-care tests such as COVIRAP usher great promises as viable alternatives for rapid testing of pathogenic infections at low cost in resource-limited settings.

“The COVIRAP test overcomes several potential bottlenecks faced by similar other tests in the past, for instance, poor performance outside highly controlled laboratory and lack of simple, affordable, yet generic and universal instrument that may be used for home-based testing and community healthcare for a wide variety of infectious and non-infectious diseases,” he explained.

Patents centered around this innovation have been filed in the India, USA, several other countries, in the name of IIT Kharagpur. The foreign filing license has been granted recently. Commercialization and use in the USA and Europe under the Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) process are currently underway. Both the Rapid Diagnostic Group in India and Bramerton Holdings in the USA, in association with IIT Kharagpur, have already identified the key resources towards establishing the reagent supply chain, kit and device manufacturing in entirety under a ‘Make in India’ initiative with complete import substitution. In addition to licensing COVIRAP to these companies, the inventors at IIT Kharagpur will receive further support via industrial consultancy project mode for further advancement of the product.

The envisaged trade-off between the high scientific standards of advanced molecular diagnostics with the elegance of common rapid tests appears to be the future of infectious disease detection and management. A platform technology capable to be inclusive of all such disease detections where nucleic acid-based tests may be deployed, COVIRAP is not just a one-time solution targeted specifically to COVID-19 but will remain imperative in global disease management overall years to come.

For more information contact:

Research & Product: Prof. Suman Chakraborty, suman@mech.iitkgp.ac.in; Media: media@iitkgp.ac.in; VeenaNxt: info@VeenaNxt.com

Follow IIT Kharagpur on Facebook/Twitter: @IITKgp Instagram: @iit.kgp

About IIT Kharagpur: Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur is a higher educational institute known globally for its graduate output and affordable technology innovations. Set up in 1951 in a detention camp as an Institute of National Importance, the Institute is ranked among the top five in India and has been awarded Institute of Eminence by the Govt. of India in 2019. The key areas of research of IIT Kharagpur are Affordable Healthcare Technologies, Advanced Manufacturing, Advanced Transportation, Precision Agriculture and Food Technology, Cyberphysical Systems, Ecology & Environment, Mining, Water Resources and Architecture. The Institute is engaged in several international and national mission projects and ranks significantly in research output including 50-100 IPR filed annually and about 2000 research publications in top journals and conferences. At present, the Institute has about 750 full-time equivalent faculty members, more than 14000 students and over 70000 Alumni. For more information visit: www.iitkgp.ac.in

About COVIRAP Commercial Partners:

Rapid Diagnostic Group of Companies: Founded by Dr. Bharat Jindal, a medical doctor by profession, the companies were established in 1995 with the sole aim of providing quality and leading-edge products and services to the Indian Healthcare ecosystem. By now, they have established an extensive national network of 22 offices and 4,000 distributors, enabling outreach to customers at under-resourced locations where the infrastructure of high-end diagnostic tests remains non-existent. In response to the pandemic situation, they came into the production of COVID IgG ELISA kits with a joint venture of ICMR/NIV, Rapid tests, PPE kits, Masks and few more products which can help the Nation. Boosted by their own manufacturing facility of diagnostic tests based in Delhi, they envision bringing the COVIRAP technology to the Indian Market at the earliest. As a pioneer in the industry, their mission is to provide timely, high-quality diagnostic kits, diagnostic instruments, point of care and critical care instruments at an affordable price. They have also initiated adapting the COVIRAP technology platform for TB diagnostics, in collaboration with IIT Kharagpur.

Bramerton Holdings: Bramerton Holdings is a subsidiary of Riverfort Global Capital (ww.riverfort.com). The Riverfort Group comprises a London-based investment advisor regulated by the UK Financial Conduct Authority and a number of regulated investment funds and investment companies. In addition, the Riverfort group is an investor in the Sure Vally Ventures (SVV) venture capital fund which invests in early-stage technology companies and includes both private sector and governmental investors. The Riverfort Group and its founders have arranged and advised the funding of over 100 companies deploying over 500 million USD in capital. Bramerton Holdings is launching the special purpose vehicle for the global development and distribution of the COVIRAP technology via its subsidiary called VeenaNxt Limited. [Contact at info@VeenaNxt.com]

The Bramerton Holdings leadership team includes Chairman Brian Kinane, (MBA London & Columbia Business Schools) and BA (Computer Science, Trinity College Dublin) having more than 12 years investment fund management experience and 15 years entrepreneurial, corporate & operational experience across global technology giants; Gytis Martinkus, Managing Director & CFO, an experienced financial professional having qualified long-term association with the KPMG; Subhendu K Misra, Managing Director US Markets, MBA (Columbia Business School, USA) and BS and MS (in Computer Science from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, USA), having over 20 years of experience at the intersection of life sciences, technology, and innovation, involving the top global pharmaceutical and medical devices companies across the US, Europe, and Japan; and Mark Wheeler, Chief Legal Officer, a qualified practicing solicitor holding, by training LLB in law (University of Bristol) and LPC (University of Law, Guildford branch), having over 10 years of experience as a qualified solicitor, and named as a key individual in small cap capital markets and up to £ 50m mergers and acquisitions transactions in the Legal 500, 2020 edition.The VeenaNxt Limited board of directors includes Richard Morgan and Peter Bains as a strategic advisor. Richard Morgan is on the VeenaNxt board of directors. Richard co-founded Celgene in 1987 and was on the board for 20 years, serving as Chairman and CEO before recruiting a new CEO. He remained on the board for a further 10 years, serving on the Executive Committee and chairing the Compensation Committee until his retirement in 2008. He was the Chairman of Quidel Corp, a NASDAQ listed company, and Polarean. Richard was also a Managing Partner at Wolfensohn Partners LP which followed 15 years at Schroders plc, then a leading British merchant bank. In 1982 he completed the Advanced Management Program at the Harvard Business School. Peter Bains is a strategic advisor to VeenaNxt. Peter is currently CBO and Executive Director of Mina Therapeutics, a privately held UK biotech company as well as Non Executive Director of Mereo BioPharma Group plc, a NASDAQ listed company and Indivior, a FTSE listed company. Peter was the Chief Executive Officer of Syngene International, which he successfully took public on the Mumbai Exchanges in 2015. Peter has over three decades of experience in the biotech and pharmaceutical industry, which included a 23-year career at GlaxoSmithKline, among other roles he was also a member of various GSK teams with strategic, operations, marketing, and business development responsibilities and a Member of the Board of Directors of GSK India. He also served as the Representative Executive Officer and Chief Executive Officer of Sosei Group Corporation, a Tokyo listed biotech company. Their team profile for the exclusive launch of COVIRAP in the global market is boosted further by executive scientist Dr. Gopal Pattanayak, Staff Scientist at the University of Chicago in the life sciences space, as well as Dr. Ajaya K. Mohanty, an internationally recognized technology professional having played a leading role in developing private and public sector partnerships in scientific research, education and IT, and having advised and consulted on the National Supercomputing Mission and (Digital) Infrastructure in India and recipient of an award bestowed by the President of India in 2017.

With You, We Are, As You Were: Year-long Relief Campaign by Alumni for Pandemic Affected Temporary Workers

Highlights:

IIT Kharagpur Foundation USA launched the fundraising campaign from alumni in USA, India and rest of the world in April 2020 and it is ongoing
IIT Kharagpur has been organizing regular camps for the distribution of relief materials funded by the alumni benefitting over a half a lakh people
Temporary workers (including laundry cleaners, domestic helps, temporary hostel workers, rickshaw pullers etc.) and other economically affected poor people who are dependent on the IIT Kharagpur campus for their livelihood were provided relief materials

IIT Kharagpur has reached the milestone of the first anniversary of the relief campaign which the Institute of Eminence has been running for people from the lowest rungs of the society who were economically affected due to COVID-19. Over this one year, the Institute and its alumni through the IIT Kharagpur Foundation USA have supported more than half a lakh people residing in villages around the campus and were dependent on the campus for their livelihood.

Considering the employment quandary faced by various temporary workers in April 2020, the Institute and the Foundation launched the first-of-its-kind public outreach campaign by a higher educational institution. The campaign was inspired by distinguished alumnus and philanthropist Dr. Vinod Gupta who made significant contributions towards the campaign along with Foundation President Ranbir (Ron) Gupta, Arjun Malhotra, R N Mukhija, Rakesh Gupta along with close to fifteen hundred alumni from across the globe playing the good samaritan for the affected people.

Talking about the campaign Ron Gupta said, “We felt particularly concerned about the non-salaried people living around the IIT Kharagpur campus. At the IIT Kharagpur Foundation USA, we raised about five hundred thousand dollars to help more than ten thousand workers with food supplies and even cash in some instances so that they could survive the pandemic. We truly appreciate the leadership at IIT Kharagpur. We Kgpians are what we are due to IIT Kharagpur and these workers like ward boys, rickshaw pullers played a very important role during our education.”

During the year-long course of this initiative, many alumni had shared heartwarming stories about the temporary workers; everyone seemed to have a memory of a time that they were helped out by the workers and these stories were never a struggle to remember. They could recall them like they happened yesterday.

A statement shared by the IIT Kharagpur Foundation USA mentions, “Even alumni who may not have been normally involved in the past were keen to help out how they could. A real sense of community could be observed. Everyone coming together to help the greater good, those that had helped them during their formative years and their time at IIT Kharagpur.”

While IIT Kharagpur Foundation USA managed the fundraising campaign to support about 10500 needy workers and their families, IIT Kharagpur led the humongous logistics to distribute relief materials. The relief recipients included daily wagers, ward boys in halls, dhobi, small tea shops, rickshaw pullers, domestic help, construction workers, etc. The Institute also supported the sellers of perishable items who suffered losses after a fire incident last summer.

“Our self-interests are best served when we serve them in the spirit of pluralism. As we talk of these people being dependent on the campus, the campus also depends on them, they are part of our fraternity. It is vital for us to support every member of our fraternity in whatsoever way we can. It only makes our lives better in the long run. I am thankful to my fellow Kgpians whose altruism has made this initiative possible along with the relentless service of every emergency worker at IIT Kharagpur,” said Director Prof. V K Tewari.

The next phase of distribution is scheduled in May. Considering the increasing spread of the pandemic, the affected community earnestly looks forward to the support provided under the IIT Kharagpur COVID-19 Alumni Relief Campaign while the Institute and the Foundation continue to reach out to the alumni worldwide.

About IIT Kharagpur Foundation USA:

The IITKGP Foundation, USA is tax-exempt [Under Internal Revenue Code Section 501(c)(3) in the United State of America] non-governmental organization set up by the alumni of IIT Kharagpur in the USA in 2002 to oversee alumni related matters such as fundraising, networking, outreach etc. The Foundation raises funds for various activities at IIT Kharagpur each year as well as helps promote the news, achievements and activities of the Institute. The Foundation has a reach of close 25000 alumni and is instrumental in engaging these alumni through various campaigns and newsletter. IITKGP Foundation, USA is headed by Ranbir (Ron) Gupta at present. For more information please visit: https://www.iitkgpfoundation.org

For more information contact: Erin L. Moran, Executive Director, IIT Kharagpur Foundation USA, Email: emoran@iitkgpfoundation.org

Press Contact: media@iitkgp.ac.in

Follow us on social media: Facebook / Twitter: @IITKgp Instagram: @iit.kgp

Authored by: Erin Moran, IITKGP Foundation USA, Sanjeev Kumar, Office of Alumni Affairs, Shreyoshi Ghosh, Executive Officer, IIT Kharagpur

Photo courtesy: Arnab Moitra

IIT KGP Develops Telemedicine Homecare Technology

IIT Kharagpur Rolls Out Telemedicine Technology for Home Care during COVID Physical Distancing Protocol

It has been more than half the year since the world has been struggling through the challenge thrown by COVID-19. With the passage of time, and vaccines still not being on the cards, the pressure on the healthcare system is only expected to rise while the healthcare workers continue to remain vulnerable to infection. To address this issue, researchers at IIT Kharagpur’s Dept. of Computer Science & Engineering have developed a telemedicine system, iMediX.

The system integrates homecare with healthcare services from the hospital. Considering the emergent needs due to COVID-19 Pandemic, the system facilitates critical health care support to patients at their doorsteps through remote consultation by a physician. The system is accessible by any standard internet browser and also from a mobile device.

In this system, a patient signs up to get an account by providing her Email ID or Mobile number. Then the patient can make a request for consultation by choosing a Department of the hospital, entering her chief complaints and uploading necessary scanned medical records. The hospital administration processes the request and assigns a doctor. The doctor after logging in sets an appointment date and time for the patient and the system communicates the information to the patient by Email and SMS. On the day of the visit, the doctor consults the patient using video conferencing and advises her by writing a prescription, which is sent by Email to the patient. The patient can also download the prescription from her account.

Prof. Jayanta Mukhopadhyay, the lead researcher remarked, “As the number of cases of home isolation and home quarantine are increasing, the system will cater to the needs of the present situation. It would be useful also to follow up and treat aged patients.”

iMediX is being adopted for public use right at its home, IIT Kharagpur on-campus healthcare system.

Director, Prof. V K Tewari stated, “In April we had announced eight R&D projects for providing COVID healthcare services. This telemedicine project was key among them especially keeping in mind its effectiveness in our own community. When our campus will start operating in full strength close to 30000 people including students would be in need of healthcare services and this technology will reduce over-exposure of the healthcare staff while efficiently catering to the population. While we are promoting physical distancing, it seems only appropriate to introduce this digital platform to meet the healthcare needs of the campus community effectively. We are creating user accounts for our medical cardholders who can avail the consultation facility home through video conferencing.”

The software was launched on October 2, 2020, on the occasion of Gandhi Jayanti and will be integrated at the Dr. B. C. Roy Technology Hospital of the Institute which provides emergency healthcare services for the campus residents and employees, confirmed the office of Principal Medical Officer Dr. Samir Dasgupta.

Deputy Director, Prof. S K Bhattacharyya remarked, “I am extremely happy that we are able to launch the telemedicine facility at BCRTH as this was one of our dream projects. Since we have a large number of OPD patients, it will be extremely beneficial to them as movement to the hospital is extremely difficult for them. Also, for our students the waiting time at the hospital will get reduced as this will be very helpful to them.”

Director Tewari further shared his plan to expand the use of this technology to people outside the campus through the upcoming superspeciality hospital of IIT Kharagpur. The researchers are already in touch with healthcare MSMEs for commercialization of the copyrighted version of the technology. A base model was installed at Swasthya Bhawan, Govt. of West Bengal on a trial basis. Field trials are also underway for the base model in Bangladesh.

Media Coverage:

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BioSpectrum	Dainik Jagran	ET HealthWorld
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Project Contact:

Prof. Jayanta Mukhopadhyay, jay@cse.iitkgp.ac.in

Media Contact:

Shreyoshi Ghosh, shreyoshi@adm.iitkgp.ac.in

For news about IIT Kharagpur visit: https://kgpchronicle.iitkgp.ac.in

New AI Diagnostics for Lung Diseases

AI and IoT based Diagnostic Device for Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Diseases developed by IIT Kharagpur

Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) is a common chronic respiratory disease caused by exposure to harmful gases and particulate matters, with a high health burden on the country’s healthcare services and society. For long, the medical community has been depending on patient history and clinical symptoms for disease diagnosis, which often prevents early detection of the disease and advancing of the disease adds to the medical bill through frequent hospitalizations.

Researchers at IIT Kharagpur have developed an affordable diagnostic intervention for Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease based on the internet-of-things medical devices (IoT-MD) integrated with AI. [Download Journal Paper]

At the Organic Electronics Laboratory (ORELA), Department of Physics, IIT Kharagpur, Prof. Dipak Kumar Goswami and his research team have developed SenFlex.T, a smart mask synced with an android monitoring app through Bluetooth, that can continuously monitor breathing patterns, rate, heart rate, oxygen saturation level in blood. The app is connected to a cloud computing server, where artificial intelligence (AI) has been implemented to predict the severity of COPD through machine learning (ML).

“SenFlex.T can be used at home by patients without having to visit diagnostic centres as against the current practice. This will also address the critical issue of addressing COPD at an early stage and by means of advanced healthcare technology, a boon for both patients and the overall healthcare system,” explained Prof. Goswami.

Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease has been a top cause of death, second to only deaths due to heart diseases. In 2017 it claimed about 1 million lives in India. In October 2019, health experts, at a medical convention, confirmed that COPD claims more lives than AIDS, TB, Malaria, Diabetes all put together. The threat from COPD has become more acute under the COVID situation, with increased comorbidity rates. A recent survey confirmed that the severity and mortality rates among COPD patients to be affected by the COVID-19 virus are over 63%. Moreover, the patients affected in the COVID-19 virus, which is right now over 4 million people in India and 27 million in the world, are more susceptible to build up various lung disorder-related diseases like COPD, Asthma etc.

“It was crucial for health-tech researchers to develop a diagnostic intervention for Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease. Spirometry, the gold standard test to diagnose obstructive airway diseases like asthma and COPD, is often avoided due to the unavailability of the equipment, difficulty in data interpretation and the cost of the tests. This challenge and the criticality strongly motivated us to develop an AI-based system, that can overcome the problem of interpreting the results and be accessible not only for the doctors but also for the patients,” said Prof. Goswami.

SenFlex.T smart mask contains a highly sensitive, flexible temperature sensor along with a Bluetooth based measuring electronics. The sensor system can continuously monitor the temperature changes of inhaled and exhaled air during breathing and record the breathing pattern. The temperature sensor has a resolution of 4.3 mK and about 25 ms response time. Further, a commercially available pulse oximeter has been integrated with the sensor system to monitor the oxygen saturation level during breathing.

The patient data is uploaded automatically to the cloud server through the mobile app (SenFlex), where it is processed by means of AIML, and reports made available on the app and for doctors’ consultation.

The innovation has been reported in the international journal ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces [Download Paper]. The researchers have also filed a patent for the innovation and are ready for commercialization. The product cost has been estimated at about ₹ 2,500/-.

Cite Paper: ACS Appl. Mater. Interfaces 2019, 11, 4, 4193–4202

Publication Date:December 31, 2018

https://doi.org/10.1021/acsami.8b19051

Media Coverage:

News 18	Careers 360	Economic Times Healthworld
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	The Week

Project Information: Prof. Dipak Goswami, dipak@phy.iitkgp.ac.in;

Institute Information: Prof. B N Singh, Registrar, registrar@hijli.iitkgp.ac.in;

Media Outreach: Shreyoshi Ghosh, shreyoshi@adm.iitkgp.ac.in

IIT Kharagpur Researchers Develop Painless Drug Delivery and Vaccination Device

Hindustan Times	News18	India Today
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Do invasive medications make you anxious because of the pain? You may not have to worry anymore – microneedles and micropump developed by IIT Kharagpur will enable your medications to be administered in a painless way. Researchers at the Institute’s Dept. of Electronics & Electrical Communication Engineering have developed a micropump and microneedle which are integral parts of transdermal drug delivery systems capable of administering large and viscous drug molecules in a painless way. The innovation will further enable transdermal application of COVID-19 vaccine.

Painless transdermal drug delivery has been a success story for decades in the USA and several other countries. In recent years, in order to expand its scope, the scientific community has been working towards developing microneedles with diameters smaller than a hair strand. The hollow microneedles operate by means of a pressurized and controlled micropump delivering the drug through the skin. The micropump pushes out the drug in the reservoir through the microneedle array. The microneedles are painless as they are too small to touch the nerves in the skin and induce pain reactions.

The innovation by IIT Kharagpur has not only reduced the diameter size of the microneedles but has also increased the strength so that they do not break while penetrating the skin.

Prof. Tarun Kanti Bhattacharyya, Dept. of Electronics & Electrical Communications Engineering

Explaining the novelty of the innovation, lead researcher Prof. Tarun Kanti Bhattacharyya said, “We have fabricated high strength glassy carbon microneedles which can withstand the skin resistive forces. Added to this is our designing of the ionic polymer metal composite membrane based micropump which increases the flow rate of the drug molecules in a controlled and precise manner. We have further integrated this microneedle and micropump to achieve controlled drug delivery.” [Contact Researcher]

3d printed integrated drug delivery device test structure

The microneedles are fabricated using SU-8 precursor and converting them by means of Carbon Microelectromechanical (C-MEMS techniques to glassy carbon microneedles with outer diameter 55 micrometre, inner diameter 35 micrometre. This process further enhanced the quality, strength and biocompatibility of the product with eight-times increased hardness, 4.8 times increased mechanical stiffness (Young’s modulus), 418 times higher compressive strength and 363 times higher bending strength than the skin resistive forces. It showed a flow rate of 0.012 microlitre per second of deionized water at 8 kilopascal. The other segment of the device, the micropump, has been designed as a flat-walled nozzle diffuser made from ionic polymer metal composite membrane with gold coating. This micropump achieved a flow rate of 30 microlitre per minute at 5V square wave at 0.1Hz.

Vaccine applicator

“The device would find extensive use in any form of transdermal medication. A typical use could be achieved in insulin delivery or medication for diseases of the lymphatic system, skin including some forms of cancer, or even COVID-19 vaccine” remarked Prof. Bhattacharyya.

The drug delivery device has been successfully tested with animals as per medical protocol. The researchers have also filed for a patent in India and published the research in IEEE and Nature journals. The research for this innovation was funded by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MEITY) and Dept. of Science of Technology, Govt. of India.

Jet issuing out of microneedle at 8 KPa

“The more we engage in multidisciplinary R&D, the better we would be able to produce customized microneedle based effective delivery systems,” he further added, hoping to transform the drug delivery system from the current syringe based one to a painless but effective experience for the patients.

Project Information: Prof. Tarun Kanti Bhattacharyya, tkb@ece.iitkgp.ac.in

Institute Related: Prof. B N Singh, registrar@hijli.iitkgp.ac.in;

Media Outreach: Shreyoshi Ghosh, shreyoshi@adm.iitkgp.ac.in;

More News:: https://kgpchronicle.iitkgp.ac.in/;

Follow IIT Kharagpur on Social Media: Facebook:@IIT.Kgp; Twitter: @IITKgp; Instagram: @iit.kgp

IIT Kharagpur Researchers Develop Novel Technology for COVID-19 Rapid Test

The entire rapid test can be conducted in an ultra-low-cost portable device with the test results available in a customized smartphone application for dissemination within 1 hour without requiring manual interpretation. All of this at a cost of around ₹ 400/- per test.

Photo: Arnab Moitra, Graphics: Suman Sutradhar

In a unique effort, researchers at IIT Kharagpur have innovated a novel portable rapid diagnostic device to detect COVID-19 infection. This first-of-its-kind device will bring the testing for COVID-19 out from the walls of expensive laboratories and RT-PCR machines and enable testing at affordable costs for the under-served community across the world.

This entire test with the extracted RNA from the patient saliva samples can be conducted in an ultra-low-cost portable enclosure as an alternative to specialized laboratory equipment. The same portable unit can be used for a large number of tests, on mere replacement of the paper cartridge after each test. The device has been proven to produce no false result with remarkable accuracy and sensitivity compatible to standard RT-PCR tests. This test has an unprecedented low cost of less than ₹ 400/- per test, taking all components of expenses and business model into account.

Considering the impending outbreak of COVID-19 infection at progressively more geographical locations with the anticipated increment in number of affected personnel at a dramatic rate, there is an emergent need to run large numbers of reliable diagnostic tests at affordable cost and minimal infrastructural support, for monitoring the early stages of progression of the disease when many of the infected persons do not exhibit discernible symptoms of infection.

However, the testing technologies currently under use are highly expensive, despite the innovations in low-cost testing kits as the actual testing machinery cost remains high. Further testing mechanism has logistical issues due to the infrastructural requirement of the testing centres. A team of researchers from IIT Kharagpur, contemplating on the challenge, realized the alternative cannot be new innovations for the existing detection systems such as testing kits and PCR machines but a disruptive approach leading to a new technology and testing process being innovated without sacrificing the scientific rigor and medically acceptable high standards of the test results.

Prof. Suman Chakraborty (L), Prof. Arindam Mondal (R)

Prof. Suman Chakraborty from the Mechanical Engineering Department, IIT Kharagpur, and Dr. Arindam Mondal from the School of Bio Science, IIT Kharagpur, came up with the concept of a portable non-invasive rapid detection test for COVID-19 thus taking the testing mechanism to a whole new level. The technology essentially deploys a disposable simple paper-strip for chemical analysis and visualization of results.

The device is capable of conducting the detection of the viral genomic RNA in an ultra-low-cost portable enclosure as an alternative to a highly expensive RT-PCR machine. The same portable unit can be used for a large number of tests, on mere replacement of the paper cartridge after each test. The new device has been designed to be usable at locations with extremely poor resources in an uncontrolled environment, catering the needs of the underserved population. Moreover, it can be operated by minimally trained personnel, precluding the needs for skilled technicians.

The research team has successfully validated the detection procedure, taking time of approximately 60 minutes to run each test. This obviates the need of an expensive PCR machine, by means of a set of innovations such as a portable automated pre-programmable temperature control unit for the genomic analysis, coupled with a specially functionalized detection unit on a simple strip of paper, and a customized smartphone application for dissemination of test results without requiring manual interpretation. While the Institute can produce the testing kit up to a certain scale, patent licensing will facilitate commercialization opportunities for medical technology companies.

Under the guidance of the Professors, the device design and fabrication work has been spearheaded by doctoral student Mr. Sujay Kumar Biswas, and the bio-analytical protocol has been standardized by doctoral students Mr. Saptarshi Banerjee and Ms. Nandita Kedia. Dr. Aditya Bandopahyay has further helped in developing the thermal unit.

Highlighting the need for such equipment, Prof. Suman Chakraborty, Department of Mechanical Engineering, IIT Kharagpur, said, “In assessing the utility of a specific method of disease detection, there is a common failure to recognize that the cost of the test kit may not turn out to be the most critical factor from the viewpoint of affordable diagnosis, unlike what is being commonly portrayed. Rather, the greater challenge is complete elimination of the need for any specialized infrastructure and ensuring the possibility of conducting tests at large scale at low cost without compromised accuracy. In that light, the RT-PCR based tests suffer from a compelling constraint of requiring an elaborate laboratory-infrastructure and support system including the operational and maintenance cost, to perform the test. The alternative existing approaches to these tests, on the other hand, are either invasive (blood tests) and non-indicative of early stage of development of the infection, or dependent on reagents that are extremely unstable and cannot be implemented in resource-limited settings.”

The equipment developed by IIT Kharagpur Researchers will cost about ₹ 2,000 if a pilot facility is used. Use of a large-scale commercial facility will further reduce with increase in the production scale. This compares very favourably with the RT PCR machine costing ₹ 15 Lakh.

Further, Dr. Arindam Mondal, Assistant Professor, School of Bio Science, IIT Kharagpur, added, “The unique portable device developed by the IIT Kharagpur researchers has not only been validated for the diagnostics of COVID-19, but also been designed to be capable of detecting any other kind of RNA virus by following the same generic procedure. The impact of this, therefore, is long lasting, empowered by the capability of detecting unforeseen viral pandemics in the coming years that may potentially endanger human lives time and again.”

The results from this new technology have been strictly validated by following all established laboratory controls against the benchmarked results obtained from RT-PCR machine, using synthetic viral RNA. The synthetic RNA is exactly the same replicate of the viral RNA extracted from infected patients, as per accepted scientific benchmarking procedure, and is used for validating laboratory tests to avoid undue contamination and danger due to spreading of infection while handling sensitive body-fluid samples

Prof. Suman Chakraborty (L), Prof. V K Tewari, Director (Right)

The project received financial support from the Institute in late April as Prof. V K Tewari, Director, IIT Kharagpur, decided to set up a fund to support COVID-19 related research and product development.

“This unique innovation is aligned with the Institutional vision to develop high-end healthcare technologies that can be afforded by the ailing common people all around the globe at virtually no cost, and is likely to make significant breakthrough in global viral pandemic management”, opined Director Prof. V K Tewari.

The Ministry of Human Resources Development, Govt. of India has also been reaching out to all technical institutions regarding ongoing research work to help address India’s increasing need to augment testing facilities.

IIT Kharagpur is ready for commercialization of the product. Any corporate or start-up can approach the Institute for technology licensing and commercial scale of production. The Institute is open to tie-ups, including a mode where the government intervenes with regards to meeting our low-cost healthcare objective for the under-served community as a policy measure to protect the interest of public health amidst the pandemic situation, instead of merely developing a strong profit-oriented model.

Contacts:

Project Information: Prof. Suman Chakraborty, suman@mech.iitkgp.ac.in; Prof. Arindam Mondal, arindam.mondal@iitkgp.ac.in

Institute Related: Prof. B N Singh, registrar@hijli.iitkgp.ac.in; Media Outreach: Shreyoshi Ghosh, shreyoshi@adm.iitkgp.ac.in

For more information visit: iitkgp.ac.in. More News: https://kgpchronicle.iitkgp.ac.in/

Follow IIT Kharagpur on Social Media: Facebook: @IIT.Kgp; Twitter: @IITKgp; Instagram: @iit.kgp

IIT Kharagpur Start-up Launches Low-cost Surgical Face Masks

IIT Kharagpur incubated start-up has developed P3 layered surgical face masks. Anigiene Technical Textiles, led by a group of researchers at the Institute’s Science and Technology Entrepreneurship Park, has developed the product keeping in mind the affordability by India’s low income groups as well as the quality requirement by those working in the healthcare sector.

The company has completed the field testing using local volunteers with encouraging feedback. The target for a full commercial production is expected to be one lakh units per month and to be priced at ₹10/-.

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“We have kept in mind typically the needs of the people who are economically challenged while strictly avoiding any compromise on the part of health protection. Our product also caters to the health workers,” said Dr. Satyabrata Ghosh, Research Associate at the Department of Biotechnology at IIT Kharagpur and Director of Anigiene Technical Textiles.

Recently WHO has confirmed that eliminating COVID-19 pandemic would be a long haul. Thus with the health mandate to wear facial masks, it is expected that over the next several months its demand would remain exceptionally high. Prof. Virendra Kumar Tewari, Director, IIT Kharagpur has been emphasising on the role of technical institutions like IIT Kharagpur in addressing the health and hygiene, and other technological needs to combat COVID-19.

“Addressing basic needs of the public and making them available at affordable prices is critical. Science and Technology Entrepreneurship Park at IIT Kharagpur is catering to this need by incubating and facilitating start-ups. I congratulate the researchers who have come forward with this product and contributed to keeping the country safe,” he said.

The startup is conducting end-to-end business operations at the facility allotted to them at STEP, the incubation hub of IIT Kharagpur. The infrastructure support is from faculty mentors at IIT Kharagpur and Focus Incubation Centre sponsored by the Ministry of Textiles, Government of India, located in STEP IIT Kharagpur.

“We are conducting further experiments on using natural fibres such as fruit peels for fully biodegradable masks,” remarked Anigiene Director Dr. Ghosh.

Contacts:

Project Information: Dr. Satyabrata Ghosh, satyabrataghosh23@gmail.com

Institute Related: Prof. B N Singh, registrar@hijli.iitkgp.ac.in;

Media Outreach: Shreyoshi Ghosh, shreyoshi@adm.iitkgp.ac.in;

More News:: https://kgpchronicle.iitkgp.ac.in/;

Follow IIT Kharagpur on Social Media: Facebook:@IIT.Kgp; Twitter: @IITKgp; Instagram: @iit.kgp

IIT Kharagpur develops COVID-19 Predictive Model for Decision-making

The study also predicts that new cases of the disease will continue until at least the end of September 2020.

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IIT Kharagpur has developed a prediction system to help predict the future spread of COVID-19 and help decision making in health-care, industry, economy, and even academics. Prof. Abhijit Das from the Dept. of Computer Science and Engineering has developed a logistic model which can be used to fit the available daily counts of infection cases.

The data used for the predictions pertain to the entire country, and for the eight most affected states in the country including Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Delhi, Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, West Bengal, and Madhya Pradesh.

Talking about the model development Prof. Das said, “The model uses only the daily infection counts available in the public domain without accessing sensitive information pertaining to medical records or contact-tracing data for a large fraction of the population. Despite that, the prediction curves show remarkably good fitting with the past data, and can be used for future planning.”

Prof. Virendra Kumar Tewari, Director IIT Kharagpur said, “People have been living in an uncertain black box without the knowledge about which way life is going to turn and how to plan their activities. A study like this based on a clear statistical model will enable them to understand and plan their wayforward. The model though experimental could prove to be helpful in planning our academic semester and policy matters related to the Institute and the campus under the current circumstances.”

However, the predictions for the future change quite rapidly with time. There are several potential factors for this such as different mobility patterns of Indian people in different phases of lockdown, large-scale migration of laborers, change in diagnostic facilities, evolution of the coronavirus, and so on. These are well beyond the control of the logistic model or any other currently known prediction model for that matter.

Although the implementation fails to generate stable and reliable predictions at the moment, the trend clearly reveals that the disease is going to stay in the country for many more months.

“Our study indicates that India is yet to achieve a steady pattern in the spread of the disease. It is unlikely to get rid of COVID-19 before the end of September 2020,” remarked Prof. Das.

He further added, “This does not leave us in a region of comfort, but the reality has to be accepted, and appropriate plans must be chalked out to address all the issues associated with the outbreak of the pandemic.”

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Contacts:

Project Information: abhij@cse.iitkgp.ac.in; Institute Related: Prof. B N Singh, registrar@hijli.iitkgp.ac.in; Media Outreach: Shreyoshi Ghosh, shreyoshi@adm.iitkgp.ac.in; More News:: https://kgpchronicle.iitkgp.ac.in/; Follow IIT Kharagpur on Social Media: Facebook:@IIT.Kgp; Twitter: @IITKgp; Instagram: @iit.kgp

Cleaning Automation Post COVID-19

IIT Kharagpur Develops Mechanised Mobile Broom for Cleaning Large Public Spaces

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Researchers at IIT Kharagpur have developed a vehicle-based mechanized broom to clean the 2100 acre campus area. The technology has been successfully tested across the campus during the present lockdown situation.

Named Sammarjak MB 4.2 this technology consists of two mechanized brooms in the front and one side, running on battery and solar power. It has the flexibility to move the dirt on roads in angular directions or in up and down direction to fit various road conditions.

Prof. Virendra K Tewari, Director, IIT Kharagpur, has planned to deploy the vehicle to be used on campus as the administration expects to face a shortage of sanitation staff even after lockdown opens. Talking about the current labour situation on the campus, he said,

“We had restricted entry of a significant section of the workforce to our campus since late March. Further we have reassigned some cleaning staff towards sanitizing the key areas in the campus which are frequented by the residents. But considering our campus size we needed a substantial number of sanitation workers and this gap is being filled by automatizing the brooming system across all the pathways.”

He congratulated Prof. Mihir Sarangi who led this frugal innovation to keep the campus clean during the lockdown period.

“The system is highly flexible to suit Indian road conditions including those in semi-urban areas. Being an indigenously built technology we kept in mind the steep curves and undulations of Indian streets and made the brooms adjustable vertically and horizontally. Further we have added solar power charging in addition to the battery to keep the running cost low,” said Prof. Sarangi.

He is hoping this would enable organizations and public bodies, with budget constraints, to adopt the system.

Another key issue being addressed by this system is that of automation of public services. With the restrictions on movement of labourers and their uncertain health conditions, engagement of 30 per cent workforce to maintain social distancing norms as recommended by the government, cleaning and sanitizing large areas are becoming a concern for various public bodies and organizations. IIT Kharagpur envisions automation as the solution to address this challenge.

“To avoid any disruption or slowing down of productivity due to less labourers, it is crucial for our society to make a firm move towards automation, be it industries or the regular walk of life such as community maintenance mechanisms. This has been a reality in the developed nations and I do not see a reason why it cannot be ours,” remarked Director Tewari.

When asked whether such automation would reduce job opportunities, Director Tewari cited how the introduction of computers has revolutionized Indian job sector and the opportunities automation would create through new avenues and ancillary industries engaged in indigenous production.

Kgp Cares: Student Outreach

Campus Lockdown: How IIT KGP is facilitating students on-campus and beyond

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IIT Kharagpur has recently sent about 35 students to their hometown in Kolkata. This is one among the several student outreach initiatives taken by the Institute administration in the past two months while the campus adopted social distancing followed by the nation wide lockdown.

Classes at the Institute have gone digital since March 17 in the process of following social distancing. Following the lockdown announcement on March 24, all classes were moved to web-conferencing mode, video lectures of NPTEL, or through email. The academic calendar was also revised with the final semester examination scheduled in July and Autumn semester in August end. Further the Moodle platform was made accessible from outside the Institute LAN for submission of assignments by students from outside the Institute LAN. A crucial part of academic programmes are internships which have been rearranged either in online form with corporate houses or at the Institute. Pre-final year students were offered to opt for internships at any department in the Institute on topics of their choice and as per project availability as part of the ongoing COVID19 e-Learning initiatives. But the initiatives undertaken by the Institute were not only limited to academics.

A quick look at the social media handles of Director of IIT Kharagpur, Prof. V K Tewari would give a glimpse of student outreach activities undertaken by the Institute extensively in the past few weeks. The Director has visited all the halls of residence and discussed with the students regarding their lifestyle and extracurricular activities while remaining indoors and maintaining social distancing.

“We take pride at IIT KGP for being a home away from home. I have visited my family members at the halls of residence for the past few weeks. We talked about how they are spending their time during lockdown, how to reduce the risk of infection, minimise social gathering and to ensure social distancing and hygiene norms just as we are doing during these visits. And together in our applause we said heartfilled thanks to the security staff, healthcare professionals, mess and sanitation workers and other essential service providers,” said Prof. Tewari.

Director interacting with girl students at a hall of residence

He has also been reaching out to the students and campus community through his social media handle and encouraging them to learn new skills, acquire new knowledge and pursue activities for which otherwise people fall short of time.

Taking the cue from the Director, many students have been keeping themselves busy in activities. Srijita Pal, PhD scholar at the Dept. of Mathematics has joined her friends to learn ballet to continue with a healthy lifestyle. She talked about several students in her hall of residence who are trying their cooking skills and it is not because of any disruption in mess services.

“Mess food continues to be usual but engaging in activities with a friend is helping us sail through the lockdown period,” she said.

Students leaving for Kolkata on IIT buses

In another initiative, the Institute has been arranging for students to return to their hometowns. At present there are more than 5000 students residing on the campus. Out of them close to 700 students have consented to go home. In the first installment, the Institute has arranged for two buses to drop 35 students to their hometown Kolkata. Further plans are being made to send the other students to their home locations across the country. Students opting to go home have been advised to stay in self-isolation for two weeks.

Talking about the initiative, Kinjal Bhattacharyya, research scholar at the Dept. of Civil Engineering said, “My decision to move to Kolkata was to support my parents in daily activities during this time of crisis. The Institute was kind to do all the arrangements from medical checkups, getting permission and arranging hassle-free travel with safe and sanitized institute buses. I will always be indebted to the institute for taking the initiative.”

His parents Supratip Bhattacharyya and Anuradha Bhattacharyya expressed their gratitude to the IIT KGP security and administration.

“Our son felt completely safe and kept us very well-assured during his stay in the campus. Also we are really happy that he is back now to support us, kudos to the IIT KGP team for taking all the efforts to arrange safe and secure travel of my ward,” they said.

Aniruddha Saha at his hall of residence at IIT KGP

However, the majority of the students have decided to stay back at the campus. While Mouli Majumdar from the Dept. of Architecture and Regional Planning stayed back to complete her PhD project work, Aniruddha Saha from the Dept of Mechanical Engineering, who hails from Barrackpore felt that the campus would be a safer place to stay and would continue with his B.Tech. internship during the summer recess. The students did not have much to complain about except that they were missing their batchmates.

Ankita Gupta who recently reached her home at Basirhat said, “We were looked after quite well with the messes being open and interactions in small groups while maintaining social distancing norms. But being a 1st year M.Sc. student with my friends already away from the campus, I felt being at home would be happier though campus was safer.”

Deepak Verma attending an interactive session by the Director

The Institute has also distributed facial masks to students and made available necessary facilities well within residential boundaries. However, they are also allowed to move outside the hostel for 30-40 minutes, particularly for procuring essential items from the on-campus market. The halls are being sanitized as well at regular intervals with the service staff properly geared with PPEs.

The Institute has been maintaining regular contact with the Ministry of Human Resource Development, Government of India through various platforms and apprising them about student outreach initiatives. The Ministry has set up a web-portal YUKTI (Young India Combating COVID with Knowledge, Technology and Innovation) wherein centrally funded higher educational institutions are to submit reports regarding the efforts and initiatives which have been taken in the wake of COVID-19.

Director, Prof. Tewari thanked Hon’ble Union HRD Minister Shri Ramesh Pokhriyal “Nishank” for his initiative to connect with individual institutions to discuss the wellbeing of the students and campus community and motivate the leadership to continue with their responsibilities and work during these challenging times.