The Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bengaluru has entered into a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Ajit Isaac, Founder and Chairman of Quess Corp, and Sarah Isaac, for establishing a Centre for Public Health at the IISc campus.

Isaac have committed a sum of Rs 105 crore towards setting up this Centre, which will be called the Isaac Centre for Public Health (ICPH), and will be a part of the postgraduate Medical School soon to be established on campus.

The Centre will be operational by 2024 and is expected to encourage aspirants to pursue careers in clinical research to develop new treatments and healthcare solutions driven by a bench-to-bedside philosophy.

The Centre is poised to create world-class post-graduate education and research programmes in public health to redefine healthcare models for India and for the rest of the world. It will offer dual degree programmes such as Master of Public Health (MPH)-PhD (5-6 years) and Master of Public Health (MPH)-MTech Research (3 years).

The total annual student intake will be about 10 per year with a steady-state student population of about 40 over time. The Centre will also host state-of-the-art biomedical research computing infrastructure to host the data, develop and test big data analysis methods tailored for public health.

In addition, the Centre will provide funding for carrying out impactful research projects in public health, including bio-surveillance, digital health, as well as mobile-based diagnostics.