With the commitment of AIMS' faculty, senior clinicians, scientists and support from funding agencies and the pharmaceutical sector, it has been possible to establish nascent clinical and scientific research. Realising the importance of impressive scientific advances and their translation to improvement in clinical management, AIMS has made a commitment to establish a first class research facility. To achieve this goal in the context of the current global scenario, research needs to take into account the local clinical issues. The proliferation of patients with different unique diseases which are found only here in India and occur at high frequencies makes it strategically possible to do excellent research. Increasingly, research centres have been developed where molecular biology is intimately associated with clinical research and there is synergy between the two. The establishment of the department of Molecular Medicine provides clinicians and scientists with adequate infrastructure to conduct good quality research and enables fundamental questions to clinical problems to be addressed in detail. Further, because of the expense of doing good quality scientific research, the establishment of such a centre allows pooling of resources and sharing of common facilities between different groups.

The medical science faculty at AIMS have come together to establish an excellent centre in a short time. To have an international profile, research is important. The future training of doctors and nurses is going to be quite different given the advances that will be made in the next twenty years, and such a research centre will facilitate their training. The entire society in the southern region of India shall stand to gain from the research centre. Also, the department can be developed into a referral centre for other research laboratories within India.

Biomedical Research Centre

An objective of the Centre for Molecular Medicine is to have a balance between scientists who are interested in basic research and scientists who are more clinically oriented. Basic scientists look at problems in a different way, thus enabling the development of new technologies to address problems that are relevant in clinical medicine. Clinically oriented scientists bring a different angle to investigate the problem primarily from the knowledge base of clinical issues. Working together, research scientists and clinical scientists can make a mark in research that will benefit humanity.

The core service is an important part of developing such a facility, particularly with respect to newer technologies which are important for doing modern molecular biology. This includes the general molecular techniques that will comprise sequencing, oligo-nucleotides, a micro-array facility, and other facilities required to run a modern laboratory. It will also include the development of a good animal house and the establishment of a facility where antibodies can be made. Proteomics is increasingly becoming an important tool, and the Institute plans to set up a system to collaborate with another centre which has such a facility.

Organisation

Each research group has approximately five to eight staff to make it internationally competitive and to encourage the application of research grants from bodies for peer reviewed funding. The Institute also wishes to establish collaborative research with industry to support a certain amount of sponsored research and to have a stream of funds which will enable the basic research to be carried out.