PM evinces interest in research work at CDRI
Minister Narendra Modi visited the CSIR-Central Drugs Research Institute (CDRI) on Tuesday and evinced keen interest in the research work conducted by the institute.
During his nearly 50-minute stay at the institute, Modi interacted with scientists, trying to understand work being done by them with regard to researches on new drugs. He even used a microscope to follow the experiments.
The Prime Minister, who is also president of CSIR labs across the country, enquired as to how scientists could help make people happy.
“We briefed the Prime Minister about CDRI’s past, present and future and he gave his blessings to all us for our endeavours for new researches,” said Madhu Dixit, director, CDRI.
“We especially briefed the PM about the good results of the ‘Reunion’ a new drug launched by us to deal with fractures in any part of the human body,” she added.
The institute also organised a science exhibition highlighting the premiere institute’s contribution to drug research and development.
The Prime Minister visited two important laboratories. He first went to the Molecular and Structural Biology lab headed by Dr R Ravishankar. He was informed that CDRI has solved the 3D structures of many proteins using X-ray crystallography technique.
Ravishankar said, “Using supercomputers, we have identified several inhibitors of these proteins. This information is then used to develop new drugs against infectious diseases like TB, and malaria that affect poor Indian population.”
Modi then visited the compound repository, botany, and natural products labs of CDRI where he was updated about how CDRI was developing new drugs using traditional knowledge of medicinal properties of plants.