Researchers are working to develop new drugs and diagnostic techniques to fight cancer and infectious diseases at Siksha ‘O’ Anusandhan (SOA) Deemed to be University here, counted among the top universities in the country, at its DBT BUILDER National Laboratory.

“The research work has started for which Rs. 4.54 crore had been sanctioned by the Department of Biotechnology,” Prof. Pradipta Kumar Nanda, Vice-Chancellor of SOA, said on Friday.

The focus, he said, was on interdisciplinary research in life sciences and three Principal Investigators and 14 Co-Investigators had been engaged in the investigation. The Vice-Chancellor was speaking at the inaugural program of a three-day International Conference on Advances in Power, Signal and Information Technology (APSIT-2023) at the Institute of Technical Education and Research (ITER), SOA’s faculty of engineering and technology.

Prof. Nanda also referred to the three innovative pharmaceutical formulations developed by university researchers to treat various chronic medical conditions for which SOA had recently signed technology licensing agreement with the National Research Development Corporation (NRDC) of the Ministry of Science and Technology.

Pointing out that inter-disciplinary research was the need of the hour, he said the earlier practice of developing expertise in one core area was no longer valid.

Prof. Nanda also said that SOA had figured among the top 15 universities in the country in the National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF) rankings which were announced on Monday.

The three-day conference has been organised by the ITER’s Department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering (EEE).

Mr. Prasanta Kumar Pattanaik, General Manager (Electrical) of Odisha Power Transmission Corporation Ltd (OPTCL) and Prof. Susanta Ray, Associate Professor, Department of Electrical Engineering, Jadavpur University, Kolkata, also addressed the inaugural session.

Prof. Sangram Keshari Routray, Convenor of APSIT-2023, said that as many as 931 research papers had been received for the conference of which 143 had been chosen for deliberation.

Dr. Anuja Nanda welcomed the delegates while Prof. Debadatta Amaresh Gadnayak proposed the vote of thanks.