Context

• The Union Government launched Drug Discovery Hackathon in the presence of Union Minister for Science and Technology and Union Minister for Human Resource Development.

About the Hackathon

• This Drug Discovery Hackathon is a joint initiative of MHRD’s Innovation Cell (MIC), All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) and Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) and supported by Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (CDAC), MyGov as well as private players.
• This Hackathon is first of its kind National initiative for supporting drug discovery process and will see participation from professionals, faculty, researchers and students from varied fields like Computer Science, Chemistry, Pharmacy, Medical Sciences, Basic Sciences and Biotechnology.
• In this initiative, MHRD’s Innovation cell and AICTE will focus on identifying potential drug molecules through the Hackathon while CSIR will take these identified molecules forward for synthesis and laboratory testing for efficacy, toxicity, sensitivity and specificity.
• The hackathon would cover various processes of drug discovery, leading to identification of effective methods, leads and tools to fight the infection, which would then be taken forward to the routine process of drug discovery.
• According to the government’s website for innovation, the hackathon is a way to utilise the young minds from around the world in the fight against COVID-19.