RINL to set up Center for Medical Genetics at AU

Visakhapatnam Rashtriya Ispat Nigam Ltd (RINL), the corporate entity of Visakhapatnam Steel Plant, on Saturday sanctioned a financial support of Rs 65 lakh from Corporate Environmental Responsibility (CER) funds to Andhra University for establishing Rs 123- lakh RINL Center for Medical Genetics at Andhra University.

As a partner, AU also funded the construction of the centre. RINL extended assistance to procure major and minor equipment for the RINL Centre for Medical Genetics.

K.C.Das, Director (Personnel) & CMD (additional charge) handed over a cheque for Rs 32.5 lakh , as first spell of payment to Prof. PVGD Prasada Reddy, Vice Chancellor, AU at a function held at the university. On this occasion, Das underlined the need for the Centre for Medical Genetics at AU as Mendelian diseases are widely prevalent. He said there is a need to address them and assured the university to extend whatever support is possible.

On the occasion, Prof. Reddy, outlined the initiatives being taken by the university in meeting the guidelines laid out in the National Education Policy 2020 (NEP 2020). V.V. Venugopal Rao, Director (Finance), and A K Saxena, Director (Operations), RINL, also spoke. Prof V. Krishna Mohan, Registrar, AU, K. Samatha, Rector, AU and others were present.

The RINL Centre for Medical Genetics is expected to help in dispensing molecular genetic diagnostic tests to all the needy people and enable screening and identifying Mendelian diseases arising out of marriages between blood relatives and in offering genetic counseling services to the affected families. In turn these services can help to mitigate such genetic related problems, which can be of immense benefit to people especially those residing in Visakhapatnam, Vizianagaram, Srikakulam districts and also to those residing in neighbouring States of Chhattisgarh and Odisha.