Roorkee, 29 August 2018: An Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Roorkee Researcher has been selected for one of India’s prestigious Fellowships, which will enable her to carry out advanced research in the field of virology at Purdue University in the United States.
Ms. Vedita Anand Singh, Doctoral student in Molecular Virology Laboratory, Department of Biotechnology, IIT Roorkee, has been selected for the Science and Engineering Research Board Overseas Visiting Doctoral Fellowship (OVDF) Program at Purdue University.
Expressing happiness at the achievement of her student, Dr. Shailly Tomar, Associate Professor, Department of Biotechnology, IIT Roorkee, said, “It’s a great achievement for Ms. Vedita as the selection process for the OVDF fellowship was very competitive. Ms Vedita is one of the most focused and self-motivated student of my research group. I have high expectations from her. This fellowship offered to her by SERB will expedite her research that aims to fight infectious vector borne viral diseases prevalent in India.”
Ms. Vedita will be working in the Laboratory of Prof. R. J. Kuhn, Director, Purdue Institute of Inflammation, Immunology and Infectious Disease, Purdue University. Prof. R. J. Kuhn is an eminent virologist in the U.S. who focuses on application-based research to identify new therapeutics for mosquito-borne viral diseases such as dengue, chikungunya and Zika.
Expressing her views on winning the Fellowship, Ms. Vedita Anand Singh said, “This fellowship will reward me amply in my PhD thesis structure. The strong academic credentials of Purdue University along with the renowned faculty will help me build a strong foundation and leverage my experience to contribute efficiently to the larger system.”
Ms. Vedita will utilize this opportunity to focus on strengthening her research skills in the field of virology. Through her research, she aims to develop antiviral therapeutics based on the structural functional understanding of viral replication complexes.
This SERB Overseas Visiting Doctoral Fellowship proposal will help her to reach this goal by doing molecular analysis of viral replication complexes using cutting edge Cryo-Electron microscopy, live cell imaging and BSL3 virus facility available at Purdue University.
The OVDF-SERB program is the latest initiative of the Purdue-India Strategic Partnership. The factors that played critical role in successful selection was applicant’s academic record and research promise, commitment to a sustainable institutional partnership between Purdue and the applicant’s home institution.
As defined in an MOU between Purdue University and Science and Engineering Research Board (SERB) of India, SERB has agreed to sponsor research visits to Purdue by visiting doctoral students who are pursuing their doctorate degrees at Indian institutions under Overseas Visiting Doctoral Fellowship program. Each selected PhD student will spend up to 12 months at Purdue with an option to extend for an additional 6 months upon approval by SERB along with travel allowance, medical insurance and a USD 2,000 per month stipend from SERB.
