A F(D)Antastic Visit to the Nanomedicine Research Group

Researchers of the Nanomedicine Research Group, ICTMumbai (NRG), work on technologies that aim to revolutionise the biopharmaceutical industry, particularly with respect to drug development and preclinical testing. It was therefore an honour to have the director of FDA India Sarah McMullen, Ph.D. visit us along with the International Relations Specialist Phil Nguyen and Senior Technical Advisor Mr. Dhruv Shah to learn more about the work we do.?

The team from FDA India started their tour of the institute by visiting the ICT-Shimadzu Advanced Mass Spectrometry Facility to learn about the various applications of Liquid Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry or LC-MS in our research, from our PhD scholar Krutika Padhye .

Our Principal investigator Dr. Ratnesh Jain joined us and then took the team on a tour of the main building of the campus. He spoke to the team about the history of the institute, its chancellors and notable alumni. The plans for a new facility in the campus were also shown to the team. As the team was led through the corridors of the main building, they saw various labs that worked on food technology, cosmetics and textiles and a display of the various food, cosmetics, medicines and Ayurveda products that have been studied by researchers from various departments.?

The team was then taken around the campus and brought to the institute’s Pharmaceutical Biotechnology Laboratory, where PhD scholars Deepa Chaturvedi and Advait Bhagwat showed them the skin-on-a-chip model they developed for pre-clinical testing. Then Dr. Prajakta Dandekar , the principal investigator of the Nanomedicine Research Group spoke to the team about the potential of using organ-on-a-chip (OoC) models, their advantages and limitations.?

The team from the FDA then met all the researchers and staff of the NRG who introduced themselves and explained the research projects, events and outreach that they work on. Then Dr. McMullen, Dr. Nguyen and Mr. Shah introduced themselves and discussed their work with the NRG. Dr. McMullen also gave a short presentation on the various activities of the Indian office of the FDA.

The team concluded their visit by visiting Dr. Aniruddha Pandit , the vice chancellor of the Institute of chemical Technology. We are extremely honoured to have hosted the FDA at our institute and our labs. Our students and researchers enjoyed talking to the FDA team and learned a lot from them. Through our discussions on biopharmaceutical research and in-vitro models, we at the NRG are inspired to push ourselves to contribute to the development of biopharmaceutical research.??