Скачать или смотреть Science 101: Webinar organised by USO in collaboration with CSIR-NIScPR (#12)

Science 101 is a series of 12 monthly webinars conducted for school students of Std. 8, 9, and 10 and teachers from schools nationally. Scientists are invited to share real-life science applications, with experiments, demos, examples, and videos so the attendees can understand the practical uses of science. This shall be followed by a Q&A session where attendees may ask the scientists questions.

This is the Twelfth. webinar in our series. The topic of the webinar is "Vaccine Self-Reliance in India", chaired by Dr. Y. Madhavi, Chief Scientist & Prof. AcSIR, National Institute of Science Communication and Research Policy (CSIR-NIScPR) Pusa Campus, Adjacent to CSIR-NPL, Dr. K S Krishnan Marg, New Delhi-110012.

About the Webinar:
The webinar shall address what vaccines are and why and how they are important in public health. It will also provide information on how vaccines work, what technologies are available to make different vaccines and how are they manufactured using different technologies. The webinar will also describe what we mean by 'self-reliance in vaccines' and how India has been self-reliant in vaccines with its over a century-old history of vaccine R&D and manufacturing at different time periods-colonial, post-colonial, and in recent years during the Covid-19 pandemic.

More about Vaccines
Vaccines are important preventive medicine to prevent infectious diseases that are spread uniformly over large populations. They need to be balanced with other public health measures like sanitation, clean air, drinking water, vector control, etc., to stop the spread of infectious diseases in communities on large scale. 'Self-reliance in vaccines' means the country can make its vaccines with its efforts, pooling resources and expertise, in its organizations to meet public health needs and challenges. India has been 'self-reliant' (Atma-nirbharata) in vaccine development at various periods in time in history to date. My presentation explains the choice of technologies such as live attenuated, heat-killed, whole cell, sub-unit, recombinant, polysaccharide conjugate, mRNA, etc., available to make different categories of vaccines with specific examples. It provides a list of process and product vaccine innovations made in India indigenously using conventional and modern technologies of production in three time periods in history to date. It also throws light on how Covid-19 vaccines were developed in India through various collaborations and public-private partnerships using different technologies. It gives an overview of which Indian institutions under CSIR, ICMR, DBT, IITs, DBT, etc., were actively engaged in R&D to find solutions for covid-19 pandemic and about Indian companies that manufactured covid vaccines in the country. In a nutshell, my presentation gives an overview of vaccine S&T manufacturing capacities and the journey of Self-reliance in India.