IIT Madras Partners With IRFC To Establish Nation's First Single Cell Omics Translational Research Lab

Chennai: The Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IIT Madras) has entered into a partnership with Indian Railways Finance Corporation (IRFC), a Navratna Public Sector Enterprise, to establish the nation’s first ‘Single Cell Omics Translational (SCOT) Research Laboratory’.

The laboratory, inaugurated on the IIT campus on Monday, marks a pioneering step toward advancing India’s precision healthcare ecosystem. The initiative aims to bridge engineering and medicine for public health advancement.

Equipped with state-of-the-art instrumentation, the SCOT Lab will facilitate early diagnosis, disease prognosis, biomarker discovery and drug screening across a spectrum of diseases including cancer, cardiovascular, infectious, inflammatory, metabolic, and other non-communicable diseases.

IRFC has provided a CSR grant of Rs 10.83 crore to establish the lab, which is located in the Department of Medical Sciences and Technology (DMST) at IIT Madras. The facility is designed to accelerate research in single-cell biology, drug discovery, biomarker identification, and translational healthcare innovation.

The sophisticated facility was launched in the presence of Prof V. Kamakoti, Director, IIT Madras, Usha Venugopal, Member (Finance), Ministry of Railways, Manoj Kumar Dubey, Chairman and Managing Director, IRFC, Prof Ashwin Mahalingam, Dean (Alumni and Corporate Relations), IIT Madras, Prof Boby George, Head, DMST, IIT Madras, Prof Krishna Kumar, DMST, IIT Madras and Prof Anubama Rajan.

Highlighting the need for such facilities to drive ‘Make in India’ in critical fields like healthcare, Prof Kamakoti said, “Our collaboration with IRFC marks an important milestone in accelerating India’s journey in drug discovery and precision medicine. IIT Madras has been at the forefront of integrating engineering and medical sciences and the state-of-the-art SCOT research laboratory will greatly enhance our ability to develop solutions for India’s capabilities in early diagnostics, targeted therapeutics and next-generation healthcare innovation.”

Looking forward to high-impact outcomes from the lab, Venugopal, said, “The inauguration of the SCOT research lab is a welcome step toward building stronger capabilities in medical research. The support extended through IRFC’s CSR funding will aid studies that have the potential to improve early diagnosis and develop better therapies. This collaboration shows how institutions can work together for larger national goals. I am hopeful that the facility will contribute to knowledge, innovation, and better health outcomes in the years ahead.”

The collaboration between IRFC and IIT Madras represents a transformative step toward decoding diseases at an unprecedented cellular level, paving the way for personalized treatment strategies and next-generation therapeutics.

Thanking IRFC for their generous contribution, Prof Rajan, said, India needs research platforms that can connect molecular insights directly to clinical impact. With the SCOT research laboratory established in partnership with IRFC, we now have the capability to study diseases at single-cell resolution, accelerate drug discovery, and develop early-detection and precision-medicine strategies tailored to our patients".

Further, Dubey said, “IRFC is proud to partner with IIT Madras in establishing the pioneering Single Cell Omics Translational Research Laboratory. Our CSR contribution of Rs 10 crore reflects IRFC’s commitment to fostering cutting-edge research and strengthening India’s healthcare innovation ecosystem".

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