With an aim to advance the development and manufacturing of new vaccines, the Ella Foundation – founded by Bharat Biotech leaders Dr Krishna Ella and his wife Suchitra Ella, on Sunday signed an agreement with US-based University of Wisconsin (UW)-Madison Global Health Institute (GHI) in New Delhi to set up the first ever ‘UW-Madison One Health Center’ in Bengaluru, Karnataka.
The Centre is expected to start operations by end of this year.
The memorandum of understanding (MoU) was signed at the UW-Madison Badger Utsav named ‘Meet Badgers Who Are Building a Better World’ in New Delhi.
In a statement, the Ella Foundation said that the UW-Madison ‘One Health Center’ will advance the development and production of vaccines against emerging diseases. “The partnership will enable collaboration across disciplines and geographic boundaries, provide Indian students and researchers access to UW expertise and training, and build research capacity in India,” said Dr Krishna Ella.
The center will provide opportunities to UW students and researchers to work on emerging infectious diseases, collaborate with new colleagues, and see how environment, politics, and social structures affect health, he said after the agreement signing.
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Dr Ella, co-founder and executive chairman of Bharat Biotech, “Both Ella Foundation and UW-Madison GHI share a common vision to advance innovation in science, research, and knowledge sharing. Establishing the UW-Madison Global One Health Center holds great significance as it will advance global health through research, education, and community engagement by facilitating student, faculty exchanges, research and education.”
Speaking on the occasion, UW-Madison GHI director Dr Jorge Osorio said, “We are energized by the opportunity to partner with the Ella Foundation to bring UW knowledge and expertise to expand innovative and impactful health initiatives outside Wisconsin to India.”
He also said that the partnership between GHI and the Ella Foundation will continue GHI’s outreach efforts to establish a ‘One Health Center’ in India.
“The India One Health Center joins a global network that includes Africa and Latin America and will open new opportunities for research, education, and provide actionable outcomes to benefit humans, animals, and ecosystems that advance equitable and sustainable health across India and the world,” said Dr Osorio.
Lauding the research excellence at UW Madison, Dr Ella said, “University of Wisconsin is one of the best universities for research on humans, plants and cattle. They have produced the highest number of virologists. We felt the need of the collaboration because we released that we need to think as a strategist and start preparing ourselves for prevention of any such future health emergency or disease.”
Founded around 17 years ago, the Ella Foundation funds researchers in the field of human science and publishes many research papers.