Although HIV infection was first detected in India two decades back and as many as 2.3 million persons were estimated to be infected with HIV by end of 2005, research on HIV/AIDS in India is rather limited. An encouraging atmosphere for collaborative research has increased the availability of reagents and technologies in India. But, the lack of active networking among scientists has not permitted the optimum use of resources. This necessitates the establishment of a platform to enable cooperation and collaboration. Scientists and groups engaged in HIV/AIDS research have achieved capacity building mostly through individual efforts and international collaborative programmes. The research efforts are however still not on a scale warranted by the epidemic. The Virtual Knowledge and Resource Center (VKRC) is an attempt to fill this gap through the sharing of reagents and technologies that are currently available with scientists working in India. The idea of a virtual repository was proposed in one of the meetings at DBT and was given further impetus in a meeting held at the International Center for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (ICGEB), New Delhi on February 20, 2006. It was decided that a core is required for such an activity and the National AIDS Research Institute (NARI), Pune would provide such a core for this VKRC.

While establishing a repository is of great need, it requires establishment of facilities. Realizing that this would be a long-term goal, a proposal for a seed grant was put forward to DBT-ICMR. This grant has now been awarded.

The VKRC will work through a website established for this purpose. Participants in this online programme will provide a list of reagents and technologies available with them. This catalogue will be available to all registered participants through individual passwords. It is realized that some of the reagents would be under Intellectual Property (IP) or Material Transfer Agreement (MTA) restrictions and it may not be possible to hand those out without the necessary permissions. It is therefore expected that the contributors will also make available on the website all conditions that the requester needs to fulfill before he/she can get the desired reagent.

The VKRC will act as a facilitator by providing a database for what is available. It will also provide a model MTA as a guide. However the contributor and the requester will be responsible for the actual arrangements and issues related to IP and ethical aspects related to such a transfer of reagents or technologies. The VKRC coordinator will be informed of any such transfers taking place.

The VKRC website will be administered and updated regularly by a website administrator posted at NARI. In addition, the VKRC will have an Advisory Committee made up of three HIV/AIDS researchers (one from NARI and two others) and one representative each of DBT and ICMR.

Such a venture can only be successful with the participation of individual scientists and their willingness to volunteer information and materials/technologies that can be shared within the Indian HIV/AIDS research community.