Three specialized centers in translational research have been created to provide dedicated facilities and networking opportunities:

**_(i) Translational Health Science and Technology Institute (THSTI)._** Set up in early 2009, THSTI is an autonomous institute established by DBT made up of a series of labs and niche centers including a Vaccine and Infectious Disease Research Center, a Pediatric Biology Center, a Clinical Development Services Agency, and a Center for Bio-design and Diagnostic. The interim centers are located in Gurgaon in the south of Delhi area, and will move in about 18 months to a new 200-acre Biotech Science Cluster campus in Faridabad, in the State of Haryana. THSTI seeks to create an institutional environment for multidisciplinary research to translate technological advancement into medical innovations for affordable healthcare solutions. The novelty is that the collaboration among research institutions, hospitals and companies is being built ground-up with a common governance to encourage practicing doctors to work with basic researchers and engineers for commercialization. THSTI is modeled on the Harvard-MIT Health Sciences and Technology (HM-HST) program for multi-disciplinary research founded in 1970, which integrates science, medicine and engineering in its academic and research activities to solve human health problems. THSTI is benefiting from a partnership with HM-HST, to oversee its development, and to mentor and train its faculty wherever necessary. Learning from India‘s first community clinical trial for a childhood vaccine for rotavirus infection (see Box 2) is expected to expedite THSTI‘s next product, a tuberculosis vaccine.<sup>7</sup>

**_(ii) Platform for Translational Research on Transgenic Crops (PTTC)_ .** While multinational corporations and larger domestic enterprises may have in-house ability to advance agricultural biotechnologies through the translation process, DBT created a specialized center for advancing the discoveries in public research institutions and small enterprises. In February 2009, DBT together with the International Crops Research Institute for the SemiArid Tropics (ICRISAT), a non-profit center supported by the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) based in Hyderabad, set up the PTTC to provide an effective interface between the lab and the land. The center has high quality personnel trained in validating gene performance, molecular integrity and the efficacy of transgenic crops developed by the public and private research system. PTTC is already operational and has identified early leads for advancement through translational validation. To complement the activities of the PTTC, DBT announced in February 2011 the establishment of a Crop Genetic Enhancement Network to spur the development of improved crop varieties. The Network is a globally-coordinated effort to bring in necessary genetic enhancement to analyze variances in crop genomics and to generate molecular markers – to enhance produce quality and reduce input costs. International partners would contribute to the initiative by pooling existing data and molecular markers and by collaboratively developing markers for further validation.

**_(iii) Translational research platform for processed foods._** Another translational research center established in 2011 is a Bio-Processing Unit (BPU) at the National Agri-Food

> 7 See Singh (2011).

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