This initiative calls for innovative proposals to create Imaging Biobanks that focus on curating high-quality, annotated image databases. This dataset serves as the cornerstone for building powerful AI algorithms. Projects that combine diverse clinical expertise to improve image metadata and develop sophisticated AI tools for image analysis will be prioritized.

Specifically, proposals focused on creating a detailed dataset of images showing healthy and diseased states, annotated comprehensively by clinical experts, will be favored over those merely collecting images and devising AI algorithms for their analysis. Successful proposals will demonstrate a clear plan to advance biomedical research, enhance disease diagnosis and treatment, and leverage the power of imaging and AI. The scope of these centers will include:

• Collection and retrieval of a sufficient number of images of the human body, both healthy and pathological, along with associated metadata such as demographics, habits, clinical tests, outcomes, treatments, and genetic information relevant to the target disease.
• Establishment of secure, accessible databases and IT infrastructure at participating institutes.
• Making the data available to the research community through a user-friendly online interface.
• Driving the development of algorithms for disease prediction, diagnosis, and prognosis using the collected data and publishing the results.

Funding Information

• The Department envisages grants-in-aid support for up to Ten (10) ambitious and focused, multi-institutional projects of up to 5 years duration.
• The budgetary requirement per project shall not exceed INR 15 Cr.

Eligibility Criteria

• Any Indian National holding a regular position in any Indian academic and scientific research institutions (Govt./Private) may apply. This call for proposal is open to all applicants eligible for Govt. funding. The research institutions must be recognized by DSIR as a Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (SIRO).
• Private institutions/ NGOs should have proof of registration at ‘NGO DARPAN’ of NITI Aayog, Certificate of registration under Society Registration Act, Organization’s Memorandum of Association, Organization’s Articles of Association, Valid DSIR-SIRO certificate/ DSIR in-house R&D recognition certificate (as applicable), and Duly audited account statements for the past three successive years.
• There should be at least one co-investigator from each participating institute and either one of the PI or Co-PI should have remaining service in co-terminus to the duration of the project.
• The Team of Researchers should be multi-disciplinary with expertise in the areas like Radiology, pathology, oncologists, physicians and data Scientists etc., capable of dealing with large amount of data, having expertise in building prediction tools involving Computational Biology, Statistics, Machine Learning, Deep Learning, etc. through high throughput omics approach. Preference will be given to researchers having the existing preliminary datasets/ clinical trial datasets/ information.
• Use of free and open source Software is preferred and encouraged to for executing the project and to ensure usability of the data to the research community at large.
• Plan of long-term sustainability need to be presented in the proposal.
• It is mandatory to submit all data to IBDC hence a data sharing pal has to be submitted along with the proposal. Proposal without data sharing plan will not be accepted.
• The extant provisions/rules of funding as applicable to extramural projects funded by the Department shall also apply to the proposals/projects received under this call.

For more information, visit Department of Biotechnology.