BENGALURU: The Bangalore Life Sciences Cluster (BLiSC) on Wednesday said it is actively participating in the national effort to track, study and counter the Covid-19 pandemic.The government through the the Empowered Committee for Covid-19 Response has asked groups across the three BLiSC units – the National Centre for Biological Science (NCBS), Institute for Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine (inStem) and Centre for Cellular And Molecular Platforms (CCAMP) – to propose projects related to immediate and medium-term responses to the pandemic.“...A subset of proposals is being submitted to the Empowered Committee for fast-track approval. Several proposals are being submitted to national funding agencies including the DBT and DST-SERB, as well as to CSR funding streams,” BLiSC said.A statement said that immediate-term proposals include solutions for Covid-19 monitoring based on campus capabilities in molecular biology; Genetics and molecular epidemiology for mapping disease spread and disease susceptibility; Technology solutions for multiple aspects of Covid-19 management, including better diagnostic methods and clinical management and techniques for better protection against infection.“Medium-term proposals include a multi-institutional effort in modelling of disease spread, use of modern genomics and bioinformatics approaches to understand the evolution of the pathogen, its ability to cause disease, and thereby to map the disease susceptibility of human populations,” the statement added.In parallel with basic and applied research efforts, CCAMP has launched CIDA — the Covid-19 Innovations-Deployment-Accelerator — which will identify near deployment-ready innovations and help fast track their last mile towards deployment.In addition to research and development projects, the BLiSC campus has taken the lead in using science communication as an essential part of combating disease spread. The campus Communications Office is coordinating with national efforts aimed at disseminating scientific information about the virus and its spread, and combating misinformation.“The Covid-19 pandemic is unprecedented in its global scale and rate of spread. Efforts to combat the disease will require coordination at the multi-national and national levels, combined with grassroots campaigns to encourage safety protocols at the community level, as well as widespread efforts to mitigate the clinical, social and economic impact of the pandemic. The campus is proud and honored to be able to contribute at this critical stage,” BLiSC said.The BLiSC campus hosts a combination of basic and applied science, linked close to industry. BLiSC includes NCBS and inStem – two of the nation’s premier biological research institutions – as well as C-CAMP, which has served as a prolific incubator for biotechnology startups. Our research groups have expertise in multiple relevant fields (cell and molecular biology, genetics and genomics, epidemiology, analytic technologies, and computational modelling); this is combined with a suite of state-of-the-art technologies and facilities (DNA sequencing, microscopy, analytic chemistry).“All research projects at the BLiSC campus operate with the requisite permissions from government agencies, including DAE, DBT, ICMR. Each project is cleared by statutory committees, as per all applicable regulations. Laboratories on campus conform to global biosafety regulations, and include both BSL-2 and BSL-3 facilities,” the statement added.