AMR DxC Summer School, C-CAMP, Bangalore: 3-7 July, 2017
All the 24 participants from different parts of India, from Delhi, Chandigarh, Pune, Hyderabad, Imphal, Kolkata, Mumbai, Uttar Pradesh, Gujrat, Srinagar, Guwahati, Chennai and Bangalore started arriving on 3rd July, 2017 to Bangalore to participate in the workshop. Our 3 more participants from Edinburgh also arrived on 3rd July with the organizers and delegates from Edinburgh.
4th July, 2017; First day of the workshop at C-CAMP:
On 4th July, the workshop started at 9:30 a.m. at C-CAMP, Bangalore with registration followed by the welcome session addressed by Dr. Taslimarif Saiyed, CEO & Director, C-CAMP. The welcome session was followed by Dr. Till Bachmann, Univ. of Edinburgh, with a general overview of the AMR DxC Summer School agenda.
 |
 |
After this, Mr. Dominic McAllister, British Deputy High Commissioner, Bangalore and Dr. Jagadish Mittur, GoK, introduced the participants with the importance of AMR and the UK-India perspective.
 |
 |
The introduction session was followed by Dr. T. S. Balganesh, President, Gangagen Biotechnologies Pvt. Ltd., by “setting up the scene”. Dr. Balgnesh gave a broad perspective on the technical aspects of the AMR DxC.
Before starting the 4 days long, activity-packed workshop, all the 27 participants were divided in 5 teams and all the 5 teams were taken through a fun-filled Icebreaker session, led by Dr. Bethany Mills, Univ. of Edinburgh.
 |
 |
 |
 |
After the Icebreaker and team building session, each of the 5 teams was assigned under one mentor. For 5 teams, there were 5 mentors, Dr. Till Bachmann – Univ. of Edinburgh, Dr. Taslimarif Saiyed – CEO & Director, C-CAMP, Dr. Oliver Koch - Univ. of Edinburgh, Dr. Bethany Mills - Univ. of Edinburgh and Dr. Shridhar Narayanan – Director, FNDR. The entire afternoon of the first day of the workshop was spent on discussing the need for rapid diagnostics in India, by Dr. Till Bachmann and by choosing the project topic by the participants, elevator pitches by participants on their own work, brainstorming and project discussion session between the participants and mentors. The session ended with afternoon coffee followed by dinner at C-CAMP.
 |
 |
 |
 |
5th July, 2017; Second day of the workshop at St. John’s Hospital:
The second day, 5th July, 2017, of the workshop was aimed to give an exposure to the participants to clinical challenges of AMR DxC perspective at the hospital laboratories, ICUs etc. for which the participants were taken that day to St. John’s Hospital at Bangalore where the participants were taken through a day long discussion and talks by clinicians and they were also taken to tours of the hospital laboratories. The day started with a welcome address by the Vice Chancellor of the St. John’s Hospitalwhich was followed by various talks by the clinicians, like, Dr. Sriram Sampath, Professor, Medical ICU, on Infection and Drug resistance in adult critical care settings, Dr. Cecil Ross, Professor and HOD, Dept. Of Medicine, on AMR in immunocompromised individuals, Dr. Sanjiv Lewin, Professor and HOD, Dept. of Paediatrics, on Paediatric infections, Dr. George D Souza, Professor of Pulmonary Medicine, on Drug resistance in Tuberculosis, Dr. Oliver Koch, Univ. of Edinburgh, on AMR UK clinical perspective, Dr. Mary Dias, Associate Professor, on AMR DxC in laboratories and current research activities related to drug resistance and Dr. Savitha Nagaraj, Professor of Microbiology, on the problem of drug resistance in tertiary care hospitals. The entire day was well spent understanding and discussing the AMR DxC related problems from a hospital and clinical perspective. The discussion was continued with the doctors and the speakers while taking a tour in the hospital’s Infectious Diseases Unit laboratories and Microbiology laboratories. The participants got an opportunity to talk to the laboratory technicians in the hospital too.
 |
 |
 |
 |
6th July, 2017; Third day of the workshop at C-CAMP:
The third day of the workshop on 6th July, 2017, was packed with a day long discussion and talks by the subject experts which was followed in the evening with the Longitude Prize event. The day started with catch-up and outline session by Dr. Backmann and by feedback from mentors to their respective teams about their projects. This was followed by technical talk sessions by Dr. Bethany Mills on Developing technologies to visualise bacteria in humans, by Mr. Anand Anandkumar, Bugworks Research India Pvt. Ltd., Prof. S. Ramaswamy, InStem, Dr. Ravi Krishnan, IITD and Dr. Ravi Kumar Banda, Xcyton Diagnostics Pvt. Ltd.
 |
 |
The technical talk sessions were followed by discussion between the teams with their mentors on the lessons learnt during the day and the reflections on their own projects which was again followed by a short tour of C-CAMP laboratories and their technological facilities. The same day was followed by a two-hours Longitude Prize (LP) session. In this session, Mr. Daniel Berman, Lead, Longitude Prize and his colleague, Ms. Sarah Bailey, introduced the participants about the Discovery Award (DA) of Longitude Prize and their new prize launch exclusively for the Indian teams. It was a wide interactive session with the audience which continued post-session on High Tea and dinner. The session was hosted by Dr. Taslimarif Saiyed followed be a short talk by two more subject experts like Dr. Till Bachmann and Dr. Ravi Kumar Banda. The session ended by a talk from the Discovery Award winner 2016, Dr. Shridhar Narayanan, Director, FNDR, who shared his journey experience to win the DA in 2016 to encourage the participants about this great opportunity and to follow their dreams.
 |
 |
7th July, 2017; Final day of the workshop at C-CAMP:
The final day of the Summer School started with the rehearsal sessions of the 5 teams for their final presentation in front of the expert panel of judges on the project that they were working on during the previous 3 days of the workshop. The expert panel consisted of Dr. Bala Subramanian, Bugworks Resrach India Pvt. Ltd., Mr. Anand Anandkumar, Bugworks Resrach India Pvt. Ltd., Mr. Daniel Berman, Lead, Longitude Prize, Dr. Ravi Kumar Banda, Xcyton Diagnostics Pvt. Ltd. and Dr. T. S. Balganesh, Gangagen Biotechnologies Pvt. Ltd. Ms. Prachi Sinha, Head of Healthcare Investments, Research and Partnerships, Axilor Ventures, was also present in the panel as the potential investor. All the 5 teams, one by one, presented their novel idea in the field of AMR DxC in front of the judges in a 15 minutes.
 |
 |
 |
 |
presentation followed by 10 minutes Q/A session. Once the presentation was over, all the presentations were reviewed and scored by the expert panel. All the presentations by all the 5 teams were extremely well thought, well presented, with innovative idea and solution. It was little difficult for the judges to decide on one winner out of total 5 teams as all the 5 project presentation were extremely well. Finally the judges came up with two winners. The judges shared their feedback with each team members which was followed by the award ceremony to the two winner teams. The winner teams were handed over the winner certificates and were promised to be funded by Axilor Ventures to take their idea forward. All other participants were given a certificate of participation.
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
he 4 days workshop ended with discussion, feedback, feasibility of AMR DxC and group photo session followed by networking on coffee. Everyone left with a happy note with new ideas, knowledge about AMR DxC, new connections and friends and new prospective opportunities to take their innovative ideas forward to fulfil their dreams and ambition.
 |
 |
 |
 |
The AMR DxC Summer School India 2017 was first of its kind in India. Looking at the success of the workshop and benefits received by the participants, we hope to conduct such workshops in future too at C-CAMP. We look forward to organize and experience many more such events in future.