Sharing expertise with scientific collaborators in India
Last year, the Indian Council for Medical Research (ICMR) National Institute of Malaria Research (NIMR) and IDDO began collaborating on a joint capacity building venture to train young researchers across three infectious diseases.
These are:
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Malaria with the ICMR-NIMR in New Delhi
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Visceral leishmaniasis with the ICMR and the Rajendra Memorial Research Institute of Medical Sciences (ICMR-RMRIMS) in Patna
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Lymphatic filariasis with the ICMR and the Vector Control Research Centre (ICMR-VCRC) in Puducherry
Researchers have been developing their skills in key areas like data collection, storage and management; modelling; clinical trials and public health. Below several of the researchers discuss their experience taking part in the ICMR-NIMR and IDDO collaboration and the new skills they have acquired during the training.
I joined the ICMR-NIMR-IDDO project to utilize my skills and expertise of clinical trials in exploring various infectious disease. The training activities in all the modules were conducted in depth. All the resources like databases, materials, documents were provided effectively and in a timely manner. These training schedules have widened my capabilities some of them being preparation of protocol, designing of case report forms for a clinical trial, scoping and searching various databases, creating appropriate search strategies that can help in future trial designing and planning.
– Dr Beauty Behera, Clinical Research Manager, ICMR-NIMR-IDDO
My motivation behind joining this project was to get trained in applying the huge amount of available data to identify knowledge gaps that will inform future research priorities in malaria. This training is a great learning experience, and it introduced me to different skills related to data in malaria research, clinical trials, and public health.
– Dr Reena Verma, Consultant, ICMR-NIMR-IDDO
Research is a vast field, and it is ever-growing. Joining the ICMR-NIMR-IDDO training suited my need to grow my skills and also provided an opportunity to work with the leading international researchers in the field of Malaria. It has been an amazing experience and the skills that I have acquired during this training will go a long way to help me grow professionally even more, and expand my knowledge horizon.
– Dr Sundus Ahmad, Consultant, ICMR-NIMR-IDDO
Being from the molecular biology background, joining the ICMR-NIMR-IDDO joint project seemed to me as a wonderful opportunity to widen my horizon and explore new avenues. The training was quite thorough and detailed, and I learned the basics of data collection, storage and management which are the pillars for every field of research and will help me to systematically design and execute my research plans.
– Dr Minu Nain, Consultant, ICMR-NIMR-IDDO
My main motivation to join the IDDO-NIMR-ICMR training was to enhance the knowledge and open a new door of research on Infectious diseases like Malaria, visceral leishmaniasis, and lymphatic filariasis. The training modules were comprehensive and included detailed sessions on Systematic Review Meta-Analysis, REDCap and Covidence softwares which would be very useful for my future research plans.
– Dr Azhar Uddin, Consultant, ICMR-VCRC-IDDO
I have recently joined the ICMR-NIMR-IDDO joint project with an aim to learn more about the emerging issues in malaria research, and the approaches that we could adopt to address these issues.
– Dr Pushpender Kumar, Consultant, ICMR-NIMR-IDDO
Being a PhD in Bioinformatics and with six months of working experience in construction, maintenance, analysis, etc. of celiac disease biorepository at AIIMS Delhi, I wanted to further explore new horizons in public and clinical health, and this was my motivation behind joining the ICMR-NIMR-IDDO joint project. During the training, I got an opportunity to learn from the pioneers of the respective fields. Currently, I am learning Geospatial modelling from the IDDO team and I am also engaged with the IDDO informatics team to learn about WWARN Data Manager and WWARN surveyors.
– Mr Apoorv Gupta, Biostatistician/ Data analyst, ICMR-NIMR-IDDO