India and United States will bolster the mutual relation in the area of medial research, bio-ethics, capacity building and technology transfer under drug research, besides developing low-cost diagnostics and therapeutic medical technologies.

Apart from firming up a couple of agreements with Department of Biotechnology and paving way for a few more others, the National Institute of Health of USA agreed to work closely with the newly created Department of Health Research under the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, sources said.

A recent visit of NIH director Dr Elias A Zerhouni along with six other experts from the institute to India has laid scope for more cooperation between the two countries in the area of medical research. The NIH, a part of the US Department of Health and Human Services, is the primary Federal agency for conducting and supporting medical research.

The Department of Biotechnology will work in collaboration with NIH to develop the low-cost diagnostics and therapeutic medical technology. An agreement was signed between the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering under the NIH and the DBT.

The major focus will be on infectious diseases, trauma, maternal and child health and chronic diseases like diabetes, hypertension and cardiovascular diseases. The collaboration will include organization of workshops and meetings to share experiences and scientific information; direct links between appropriate centres of excellence, institutes and institutions in both countries and collaboration among scientists and engineers in centres of excellence in both countries to conduct research, research training and technology development.

The delegation met Union Health Minister Dr Ambumani Ramadoss and discussed about strengthening cooperation and collaboration in the area of health research, funding for bio-ethics, capacity building and technology transfer under drug research. Special emphasis during the discussions was also given for research collaboration in the fields of ageing, vaccine development, maternal and child health care, special tools for disease surveillance and environmental health.

An Indo-US meeting on translational Health Sciences was also held on sharing expertise of Indian and US scientists from public/private institutions to identify and conduct collaborative biomedical research to improve health care of our people. The NIH director presented the roadmap for biomedical research to the participants.

"Helping to lead the way toward important medical discoveries that improve people's health and save lives, NIH scientists investigate ways to prevent disease as well as the causes, treatments, and even cures for common and rare diseases," he said.