Page 109 - Annual report 2021-22

Annual Report 2021-22 |

Policy formulation in healthcare

Anurag Agrawal co-chaired the Lancet-Financial Time Commission 2019 which over the period of two
years provided directions for digital health to meet sustainable development goals. For the first time,
a joint The Lancet & Financial Times Commission entitled “Growing up in a digital world: Governing 92
health futures 2030” explored the convergence of digital health, artificial intelligence (AI), and other
frontier technologies with universal health coverage (UHC) to support attainment of the third
Sustainable Development Goal (SDG). The goals of this commission were (i) to strive for integrated
digital development that improves the health and well-being of children and young people in an ever
more digital world; (ii) examine existing policies for digital health, AI, and UHC to identify those with
the greatest potential to improve health and well-being, maximise health equity in resource-poor
settings, and ensure human rights; (iii) deliver a clear set of recommendations on the governance of
digital health, AI, and UHC, taking into account geopolitical, economic, and social factors. Following
the Commission's meetings three working groups were formed to investigate issues, collate evidence,
consider potential future scenarios, and identify areas that require governance responses at different
levels. All groups took the needs and concerns of children and youth into account. Co-chair, supported
by secretariat, from CSIR-IGIB were integral part of developing the working group strategies and
background papers. The team explored how the data-driven world of digital technologies and AI will
create new paradigms and health ecosystems. The commission considered the ways in which digital
ecosystems are developing, the key actors within the ecosystems, and equity implications of different
scenarios. Finally, the commission provided governance and stewardship on how digital health
ecosystems can be governed responsibly to ensure health benefits and empowerment. The
commission’s reports have been submitted to Lancet.

Skill Development

CSIR -IGIB (Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology) a constituent Laboratory of CSIR is devoted
to R&D activities, technology support and academics including Skill Training/HR for the benefit of
Genomics and Molecular Technologies industry in the country. IGIB aims to impart practical skills,
ready them for analyzing data and become proficient enough to carry out analytical troubleshooting.
The students are encouraged to improve record keeping and reporting, team work presentation
abilities and independent, problem solving skills.
Due to the Covid situation all the training programmes were conducted in online hands-on mode
through collaboration. Eighteen students received training in application of AI to Biological Data
Analysis. This programme was for a period of 41 days. In another programme conducted during the
pandemic, using the online mode 26 trainees became proficient in extraction of genes from literature
using pubmedmineR. This would enable the trainees to identify important genes in a given disease
and conduct further bioinformatics analysis on pathways and gene-gene interactions.

A single day reskilling short term training as part of post-graduate courses was availed by 43 trainees.
Data mining from literature for molecules and agents to tackle AMR was a lecture cum hands-on online
programme in collaboration with Prof. Kunal Roy under AICTE QIP STC-1 programme that catered to
50 trainees.

Literature to pathways, gene-gene interactions networks, was also the theme of a hands-on workshop
for 25 trainees in NIELET, Leh, Ladakh, conducted in collaboration with CSIR-IMTECH.