Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, CSIR's constituent leading biology lab, Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology, CCMB based in Hyderabad is employing several tools and approaches in the country's fight against COVID-19.

CCMB is an authorized testing centre for COVID-19 and receives patient samples from government hospitals across 33 districts of Telangana to check for SARS-CoV-2 virus. Currently, test capacity is around 350 samples a day.

It has also trained 25 medical doctors, technical staff and students from five government hospitals - NIMS, IPM, Govt Fever Hospital in Hyderabad and Kakatiya Medical College, Warangal.

CSIR-CCMB has also created training videos on best practices for handling patient samples and on RT-PCR. These videos are available for authorized centers and can be procured by contacting director[at]ccmb[dot]res[dot]in

CSIR labs are leading the way in genome sequencing of the Corona Virus and CCMB is performing Next Generation Sequencing and analysis to map out the whole genome sequence of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. The patient samples with CCMB that show high viral load are chosen for genome analyses.

CCMB has also been actively engaged in conveying various precautions and advisories on Corona Outbreak by innovative means in regional languages on social media platforms to the public at large.