"Working on three out of the five verticals formulated by the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), the Central Drug Research Institute (CDRI), has inked an MoU (memorandum of understanding) with King George’s Medical University (KGMU) to sequence the virus strains obtained from COVID-19 patients in Uttar Pradesh. Initially, the Lucknow-based lab will sequence the virus strains from the samples of a few patients. This activity will be taken up under the first vertical ‘digital and molecular surveillance’. Therapeutics or repurposing of drugs to fight against COVID-19 is the second vertical where CDRI is getting involved. Under this, the researchers are trying to repurpose some already existing drugs that have been used by clinicians. The institution has a diverse library of molecules and these have been screened using in silico approaches against a panel of drug targets from SARS-CoV-2 under the third vertical, ‘target-based screening systems’."

- Professor Tapas Kumar, Director, Central Drug Research Institute (CDRI), Lucknow