UoH signs MoU with ODA for translation research

Hyderabad: The University of Hyderabad (UoH) has signed an MoU with Omics Data Automation (ODA) Pvt Ltd. The MoU was signed by Dr Devesh Nigam, Registrar, UoH and Ganapati Srinivasa, Director, ODA in the presence of Prof B J Rao, Vice Chancellor, UoH; Prof N Siva Kumar, Dean, School of Life Sciences; Prof Ghanshyam Krishna, Director, Institution of Eminence (IoE); Prof B Shamanna, School of Medical Sciences; Prof HA Nagarajaram, Department of Systems & Computational Biology; Ramanathan Radhakrishnan, Director, ODA and Dr. Madhusudan V Atre, Principal Technical Architect, ODA.

Given the size and complexity of the Indian population owing to its ethnic diversity, diverse cultures and conserved gene pools within communities, the Indian medical records offer a gold mine for clinical informaticians.

In this respect, this MoU offers an immeasurable opportunity for UoH because ODA has well-demonstrated expertise and capabilities in data analytics involving big data and has developed a robust informatics technology platform that rapidly and reliably aggregates and analyzes patients' data such as genome sequences, proteomes, metabolic profiles, radiological scans, clinical information, and prescriptions.

This expertise of ODA is demonstrated by its successful academic collaborations, which include the University of California at Los Angeles and San Francisco, Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard and Providence Cancer Institute, Oregon, USA.

It is envisaged that through this MoU, UoH and ODA seek multi-level and multi-pronged collaborations: They are: a) exchange of researchers and students via in-bound and out-bound sabbaticals, b) preparation and submission of collaborative research projects to the funding agencies within India and abroad, c) setting up a Clinical Informatics Centre within the UoH with necessary hardware and software and d) exploring collaboration opportunities with the hospitals and diagnostics centers.

ODA's understanding of Causal AI and its application to Precision Medicine, especially with respect to Causal modelling and Causal inferencing, will be leveraged to build a strong understanding of the nature of critical diseases in India.