Phenome-India and Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) Cohort Knowledge base (PI-CheCK) multi-institutional project on health status of employees of CSIR-CFTRI, Mysuru, was held here.
Inaugurated by CSIR-CFTRI director Sridevi Annapurna Singh, the six-day comprehensive health check-up camp at the CFTRI campus was conducted from February 22 and 27.
She stated that CSIR-CFTRI was always open to join hands to take up a collaborative project with sister laboratories in the frontier area of science and technology.
While addressing the volunteers and participants, she emphasised the importance of the CSIR-Cohort health knowledge base project, which is being undertaken for the first time in India.
In order to study the cardiometabolic health status and predict possible risk of communicable and non-communicable diseases of employees and their spouses, the project is being implemented across all 37 laboratories of CSIR-New Delhi. This ambitious project of CSIR is coordinated by CSIR-Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology (IGIB) under the leadership of Shantanu Sengupta, Chief Scientist and Project Coordinator.
The project is funded by CSIR for five years with a worth of nearly ₹100 crore.
To facilitate the camp at CSIR-CFTRI, a team of experts arrived from the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB), Hyderabad, and IGIB, Delhi. Current and retired employees of CFTRI and their spouses were examined for their health status. The range of different tests that were undertaken included blood biochemistry, body composition, lipid profile, health status of liver, lung, eyes, skin, thyroid, kidney, heart, gut microbiota analysis, and immuno-phenotyping analysis etc, a release said.
The outcome of the study is expected to provide baseline data of the Indian population for different disorders and lifestyle diseases. The proposal also helps to establish the health status of different individuals, it stated.
CSIR-CFTRI had previously participated in a similar cohort project on sero-surveillance during COVID-19 pandemic, and contributed to the highest number of samples for corona antibody assays. Gut microbiota results will be known in 3-4 months, phlebotomy results in 3-4 days and all other results are known immediately through SMS and updated in CSIR Cohort portal.
Prakash M. Halami, Head, Microbiology and Fermentation Technology Department, who is coordinating this project at CSIR-CFTRI, and S.P. Muthukumar, chief scientist, monitored the health check-up programme wherein about 309 CFTRI staff availed the opportunity.
“Using AI/ML tools, data will be analysed and used for follow up in next two phases,” Dr. Halami said.
