HYDERABAD: Hyderabad-based Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB) will be leading the consortium of labs that will be deployed to detect the Covid-19 variant Omicron.
The Consortium was established four months ago with support the the Rockefeller Foundation’s Pandemic Prevention Institute and was able to sequence and detect the first two Omicron variants in Bengaluru within four days of receiving the samples.
These two variants were detected by the Bengaluru team of National Centre for Biological Sciences (NCBS) in collaboration with Strand Life Sciences and BBMP in a matter of just four days. “Professor Satyajit Mayor from NCBS conveyed the information to local and national authorities and the Indian government released a statement on the afternoon of December 2, within four days of receiving the samples,” said a statement from CCMB, highlighting the consortium’s efforts.
Dr Rakesh Mishra at the CCMB said, “The consortium is continuously monitoring the situation in all four cities and has upscaled its efforts to sequence as many samples as possible.” Apart from CCMB and NCBS, the consortium includes CSIR Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology in Delhi and Pune Knowledge Cluster, Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (ISER) and CSIR- National Chemical Laboratory Pune.