A new organisation, the Biomedical Foundation of India (BFI), has been formed by Indian businessmen in collaboration with the US-based University of Rochester Medical Centre (URMC), to promote and support biomedical education and clinical research activities between the University and various Indian universities and research centres.

The foundation will support the best Indian medical scholars from select Indian universities and institutions to attain training in the URMC by providing scholarship, thus enabling them to gain advanced degrees and research experience, creating world-class education and research opportunities for them in the US .

In the first year of operation, beginning from the next academic year in US, the BFI is expecting to provide scholarship for five to eight scholars including undergraduates to get training from the URMC, informed Praful Patel, secretary, BFI, who is also the general secretary with the UK-based International Ayurveda Foundation (IAF).

“Our objective is to support the clinical research activities of URMC in India and to promote best talents from India for PhD courses and post doctoral research in US,” said Patel. “This initiative will help place India at the forefront of modern biomedical research – one of the key frontiers of medical advancement – in an important partnership with the United States,” he added. The funding should be coming either from universities or major pharma firms and from the high net worth Indian foundations. Besides, the foundation will also facilitate training of scholars through private sponsorship.

The BFI is designed to create research opportunities at University level for graduate students, post-doctoral researchers, physicians and other scholars in the country in collaboration with the URMC. The offerings include creation of opportunities in the URMC's graduate programs for top Indian scholars, and positions for Indian post-doctoral fellows and faculty members who are looking for advanced training with top biomedical researchers. An internship in veterinary medicine will also be offered.

The collaboration is expected to focus on creating research opportunities in several areas, including cancer, neuromedicine, immunology and infectious disease, cardiovascular disease, orthopaedics, and veterinary medicine. Additional areas of focus for visiting researchers will include stem cells, nano-medicine, genomics, systems biology, biomedical imaging, and biomarkers.

Announcing the collaboration, Bradford C Berk, CEO, URMC said in a press release, “India is a country with an enormous history of accomplishment and rapidly growing strength in biological sciences. We look forward to establishing collaborations with its scientists and helping to train its next generation of leaders in biomedical science.”

URMC, based in New York is claimed to be a world leader in research and its School of Medicine and Dentistry is ranked within the top 25 percent of US medical schools in terms of research funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Its accomplishments include a technology that led to vaccines preventing infection by two common microbes, Haemophilus influenza type b (Hib) and Pneumococcus. The University’s physicians and scientists also helped to create the world’s first vaccine to prevent cervical cancer and in expanding the use of implantable cardiac defibrillators (ICDs) for treatment of heart disease.