CryptoRelief grants $1M to IIT-M for wastewater-based epidemiology research

CryptoRelief has granted $1 million to establish a wastewater-based epidemiology (WBE) research facility at the Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IIT-M). The facility will act as an intelligence unit to track and prevent a virus outbreak in its early stages. The grant would help in advanced research and getting a foresight into the everevolving virus patterns whilst also giving us a chance to better prepare ourselves. In this CryptoRelief funded project, data obtained from various wastewater sources and treatment facilities will be analysed and made available to the public through dashboards. Gradually, this facility will be extended to other parts of India. New human resources developed in the area will be useful in establishing such facilities across the country. International Centre for Clean Water (ICCW), a non-profit centre created by IIT-M and housed at the IIT-M Research Park will be establishing the facility. The ICCW team will work on building a hydroinformatics platform for the city with appropriate modelling tools to give spatiotemporal information of the data derived from WBE studies.