Summary:
Bengaluru, Dec 2 (PTI) The Infosys Prize 2021 was on Thursday awarded to outstanding contributions to science and research addressing some of the greatest challenges of our time, including designing a robust indigenous platform for rapid testing of deadly diseases like COVID-19, and studying the effects of climate change on fragile ecosystems.
The Infosys Science Foundation (ISF) awarded the prize during a virtual ceremony in six fields - Engineering and Computer Science, Humanities, Life Sciences, Mathematical Sciences, Physical Sciences and Social Sciences.
The award comprises a pure gold medal, a citation and a prize-purse of USD 100,000, ISF said in a statement.
The Infosys Prize in Engineering and Computer Science field was awarded to Chandrasekhar Nair, CTO of Molbio Diagnostics in Bengaluru, for his development and large-scale deployment of TrueNat, a novel point-of-care testing platform for Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) based medical diagnostics.
Nair’s work, invented and produced in India, has enabled rapid testing for millions of COVID-19 and TB cases in India and other resource-limited countries around the world, according to ISF.
PCR based testing enables direct testing of genes from patient samples.