New Delhi: IIT Delhi and AIIMS New Delhi, the two leading institutions in the country, have jointly set up ‘Centre for Advanced Research and Excellence in Disability & Assistive Technology (CARE-DAT)’, a Centre of Excellence (CoE) created under the aegis of the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR).

The Center was inaugurated Thursday by Prof V. Ramgopal Rao, Director, IIT Delhi and Dr Randeep Guleria, Director, AIIMS, New Delhi in the presence of senior functionaries from both sides.

The mandate of the Centre is to encourage comprehensive research on an identified problem with the aim of generating new knowledge and improving the holistic understanding of neurological diseases such as stroke and provide assistive technology solutions for rehabilitation of patients.

It is established with the vision - to design novel technological solutions, therapeutic protocols & clinical validation for the solutions in Neuro-assistive technology and thereby providing commercial-ready technology under the “Make in India” initiative of the Government of India.

The Centre for Biomedical Engineering (CBME) at IIT Delhi is already a joint centre of the two institutes. This new CoE is an outcome of active research for the last seven years by joint collaboration of faculty from the CBME and the Department of Neurology at AIIMS. This collaboration has already registered its landmark with the products that have been developed & designed already, five patents have been filed and very good research has been jointly published by the group.

Prof V. Ramgopal Rao, Director, IIT Delhi said, “This new CoE, CARE-DAT, will open new avenues in design, development and clinical validation of novel products for Neuro Assistive Technologies in Stroke Rehabilitation. IIT Delhi and AIIMS faculty currently collaborate on a variety of projects and technologies. We keenly look forward to more collaborations between AIIMS and IIT Delhi, which will benefit the society and result in IP creation, technology transfers and incubation of startups.”

Prof. M.V. Padma Srivastava, Head, Department of Neurology and Principal Investigator for this CoE from AIIMS, New Delhi added, “This is a great initiative by both the institutes. Stroke is leading cause of high mortality and morbidity in world, and in India we are having a high number of patient & economic burden for rehabilitation of these patients. Innovative solutions that will be developed under this initiative will be really important in framing the future of Neuro-Assistive Technologies in India.”

Prof. Amit Mehndiratta from the Centre for Biomedical Engineering and the CoE’s Principal Investigator from IIT Delhi added, “We displayed two of the products developed at IIT Delhi, which are being clinically validated at AIIMS, New Delhi at the inaugural function. One of these products, robotic exoskeleton for rehabilitation of upper limb, is in Phase 3 clinical trial, which will be part of this newly established CoE activity in next 2 years. We envision that more products and solutions will be developed in future and this Center will be one of the pioneer facilities to encourage research in assistive technologies.”

                                                              **********

                                            Press Release Issued On : 29/10/2021