Virology Innovation Cohort
The Virology Innovation Cohort is a six-month innovation program designed to foster startups and innovators building solutions in virology, emerging infections and antimicrobial resistance (AMR). The program combines scientific mentorship, product development support, sector-specific incubation facilities, and startup ecosystem exposure, while also opening opportunities to adopt validated technologies developed by the Institute of Advanced Virology (IAV) through structured technology transfer for venture creation and commercialization.
Who can apply :
Startups | Innovators
Host Institution
The Institute of Advanced Virology (IAV) is an institute of global standards dedicated to research, diagnosis and management of emerging and re-emerging infectious viral diseases, established by the Government of Kerala. Equipped with advanced infrastructure, high-containment biosafety laboratories (BSL-3 with progression to BSL-4), and strong international collaborations, IAV plays a critical role in translational virology, epidemic preparedness, and rapid response.
Focus Areas
Diagnostic Technologies & Testing Platforms:
Solutions for pathogen detection, point-of-care and rapid testing, scalable and deployment-ready testing systems, including solutions designed for low-resource and remote settings.
Vaccine & Immunology Platforms:
Vaccine development, immune response monitoring, and next-generation immunisation technologies for viral diseases.
Virus or viral products technologies:
Applications using virus or viral products for diagnostics, delivery systems, and advanced therapeutic applications such as oncolytic virotherapy and phage therapy.
Therapeutics Development:
Startup solutions supporting discovery and translational therapeutic development.
Genomics & Bioinformatics based innovations:
Data driven solutions for diagnostics, surveillance, drug discovery, public health decision-making and epidemic monitoring.
Phage based therapeutics against antimicrobial resistance:
AMR assays, Phage cocktail development platforms.
Program Highlights
Scientific mentorship from domain experts
Incubation support
Access to state-of-the-art laboratory infrastructure
Prototype/MVP/Product development support
Opportunity to adopt and commercialize validated technologies from IAV
Industry/institute partnership
