Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research (JNCASR), Bengaluru has bagged the Merck-Millipore India Innovation Awards’ 2012 (MMIIA).

The bi-annual event MMIIA was initiated by Merck Millipore (India), the life science division of Merck KGaA of Darmstadt, Germany in 2011 to recognise the research undertaken by scientists from government-funded and non-profit public research institutes in green chemistry, medicinal chemistry, chemical and bio-analytics, proteomics, genomics, drug discovery and delivery, bio-manufacturing, biomarkers and synthetic biology.

The three winning teams were selected from over a hundred applicants. The first prize went to Dr Tapas Kumar Kundu, Dr Ruthrotha Selvi Bharatha Vikru, Hari Kishore Annavarapu, Dr Mantelingu Kempegowda from JNCASR, Bengaluru. The team bagged the first prize of Rs.3,000,000.

The second prize of Rs.2,000,000 was awarded to Dr Dhiraj Kumar, Dr Ahmad Faisal Karim, Pallavi Chandra, Aanchal Chopra, Zaved Siddiqui, Dr Ashima Bhaskar, Dr Amit Singh from International Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology, New Delhi.

The third prize of Rs.1,000,000 was awarded to Dr Rita Kumar, Dr Abha Joshi, Dr Anil Kumar, Dr Tushya Kumar Saxena from Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology, Delhi.

“India is a global leader in biotechnology, medical and health research, and R&D by the scientific community here is extremely promising. I am honoured to be a part of the MMIIA selection panel that aims to nurture the budding scientists and appreciate their significant contribution to the field of life sciences. The final selection criteria were based on the relevance of the project for the Indian society, novelty, the application, sustainability, commercial potential and impact of the project at the regional, national and global level,” said Dr Theodor Dingermann, director of the Institute of Pharmaceutical Biology at the Goethe-University, Frankfurt and a member of MMIIA’s Scientific Advisory Board.

Dr Claus-Dieter Boedecker, managing director, Merck Limited remarked, “The pharmaceutical market in India is growing at an accelerated pace and Indian scientists have made a significant contribution to this growth.”

Prantik Mukherjee, head - Lab Solutions, Merck Millipore in India added, “The MMIIA is the first-of-its-kind award conceptualized by Merck Millipore (India) in 2011.”