The CCBT was established in 2013 by Prof. Ashok Venkitaraman (University of Cambridge & UK Medical Research Council), who holds a Collaborative Sciences Chair at inStem/NCBS. The CCBT is an inter-institutional centre between inStem and NCBS, with strong collaborative links to the University of Cambridge. Ashok, –who is the Theme Coordinator works closely with talented colleagues who lead scientific teams for high-throughput screening / structural biology (Neelagandan Kamariah), cell biology / in vivo biology (Anandi Karumbati), and computational chemistry / synthetic chemistry (Kavitha Bharatham).

Uniquely, research in the CCBT involves multidisciplinary teams from different disciplines who work together to achieve scientific goals. Postdoctoral researchers in the CCBT are therefore exposed to an integrated research environment that is distinct from conventional PI-led labs, which empowers them to tackle scientific challenges beyond the scope of individual investigators.

A major award from the Department of Biotechnology (DBT) funds CCBT research in Bangalore. In addition, the UK Medical Research Council, through a joint award with the DBT, supports collaborative links in Cambridge.