Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IIT Madras) is partnering with Indian Railways Finance Corporation (IRFC), a Navratna Public Sector Enterprise, to establish the Nation’s first ‘Single Cell Omics Translational (SCOT) Research Laboratory’.

This Research Laboratory, inaugurated on the campus today
(17th Nov 2025
), marks a pioneering step toward advancing India’s precision healthcare ecosystem. This initiative aims to bridge engineering and medicine for public health advancement.

Equipped with state-of-the-art instrumentation, the SCOT Lab will facilitate early diagnosis, disease prognosis, biomarker discovery and drug screening across a spectrum of diseases — including cancer, cardiovascular, infectious, inflammatory, metabolic, and other non-communicable diseases.

IRFC is providing a CSR grant of ₹10.83 crore to establish this lab, which will be located in the Department of Medical Sciences and Technology (DMST) at IIT Madras. The facility is designed to accelerate research in single-cell biology, drug discovery, biomarker identification, and translational healthcare innovation.

This sophisticated facility was launched in the presence of Prof. V. Kamakoti, Director, IIT Madras, Ms. Usha Venugopal, Member (Finance), Ministry of Railways, Mr. Manoj Kumar Dubey, Chairman and Managing Director, IRFC, Prof. Ashwin Mahalingam, Dean (Alumni and Corporate Relations), IIT Madras, Prof. Boby George, Head, DMST, IIT Madras, Prof Krishna Kumar, DMST, IIT Madras, Prof. Anubama Rajan, who is coordinating this project from the DMST, and other stakeholders.

Highlighting the need for such facilities to drive ‘Make in India’ in critical fields like healthcare, Prof. V. Kamakoti, Director, IIT Madras, said, “Our collaboration with IRFC marks an important milestone in accelerating India’s journey in drug discovery and precision medicine. IIT Madras has been at the forefront of integrating engineering and medical sciences and this state-of-the-art SCOT Research Laboratory will greatly enhance our ability to develop solutions for India’s capabilities in early diagnostics, targeted therapeutics and next-generation healthcare innovation.”

Looking forward to high-impact outcomes from the lab, Ms. Usha Venugopal, Member (Finance), Ministry of Railways, said, “The inauguration of the SCOT Research Lab is a welcome step toward building stronger capabilities in medical research. The support extended through IRFC’s CSR funding will aid studies that have the potential to improve early diagnosis and develop better therapies. This collaboration shows how institutions can work together for larger national goals. I am hopeful that the facility will contribute to knowledge, innovation, and better health outcomes in the years ahead.”

This collaboration between IRFC and IIT Madras represents a transformative step toward decoding diseases at an unprecedented cellular level, paving the way for personalized treatment strategies and next-generation therapeutics.

Thanking IRFC for their generous contribution, Prof. Anubama Rajan, Department of Medical Sciences and Technology, IIT Madras, said, India needs research platforms that can connect molecular insights directly to clinical impact. With the SCOT Research Laboratory established in partnership with IRFC, we now have the capability to study diseases at single-cell resolution, accelerate drug discovery, and develop early-detection and precision-medicine strategies tailored to our patients. This partnership also creates a national training hub, bringing together clinicians, scientists, and engineers to build the next generation of India’s translational research ecosystem. This facility strengthens India’s ability to drive drug discovery, early diagnostics, and precision healthcare, while training the next generation of clinicians and scientists.”

Further, Mr. Manoj Kumar Dubey, Chairman and Managing Director, IRFC, said, “IRFC is proud to partner with IIT Madras in establishing the pioneering Single Cell Omics Translational Research Laboratory. Our CSR contribution of ₹10 crore reflects IRFC’s commitment to fostering cutting-edge research and strengthening India’s healthcare innovation ecosystem. This initiative will empower researchers, students, and clinicians to drive breakthroughs in diagnostics, drug development, and precision medicine. We believe this collaboration will meaningfully contribute to the nation’s scientific advancement.”

EXPECTED OUTCOMES

The SCOT Lab will enable researchers to identify novel biomarkers for early disease detection and treatment response and develop personalized therapeutic strategies through single-cell profiling for various diseases. Further, this lab will also aim to advance early detection and drug/vaccine discovery platforms and strengthen India’s precision medicine ecosystem by integrating molecular data with clinical insights.

The laboratory will serve as a national training hub for clinicians, scientists, and engineers, building India’s next generation of experts in single-cell transcriptomics, functional genomics, and translational medicine. It will also train medical and engineering students in advanced cell-based analytics and computational biology.