Multidisciplinary Centre for Advanced Research and Studies (MCARS) was setup with a vision to advance, nurture and promote cutting edge multidisciplinary research and training. The idea of setting up of MCARS originated in June 2016 and culminated with its formal establishment as one of Jamia Millia Islamia’s(JMI) Centres of Advanced Learning on February 13, 2017.

The centre aims to provide advanced courses, in the areas, which are upcoming and multi-disciplinary in nature; thereby fulfilling JMI’s commitment to promote advance learning. MCARS envisions to provide a platform for young researchers and scholars to collaborate, innovate, explore and find solutions to diverse scientific problems, including those with a direct impact on the society.

Currently, MCARS houses faculty members with strong research background and expertise in diverse disciplines of science namely (1) Microbiology (2) Parasitology (3) Green Energy and Biofuel (4) Virology (5) Stem Cell biology (6) Computational Structural Biology (7) Nanotechnology and (8) Synthetic biology (9) Neuroscience.

MCARS has a state of the art experimental laboratory, which was inaugurated by Prof. Najma Akhtar, Hon’ble Vice Chancellor of JMI on August 26,2019. The centre also has a computational laboratory for theoretical research. The research facilities housed at the centre are funded by the grants and fellowships from government approved agencies such as DBT-Welcome Trust, UGC, CSIR, DBT and DST. The experimental facility as well as the computational laboratory are shared by all faculty members which has enabled an interactive, dynamic, competitive and collaborative ecosystem.

The Academic and research activities at MCARS aim at promoting:

• Research and innovation with social outreach.
• Teaching and training of young minds to explore novel avenues through integrative research and study.
• An interactive platform for short-term-/long-term- national and /international visiting academicians and research scholars across disciplines.
• An interactive ecosystem for scientists, researchers, teachers and scholars across disciplines to share their expertise and discuss new ideas to find relevant solutions to challenging scientific questions faced by the society at large.
• Collaborative research initiatives among researchers within JMI as well as with private partners (Industry), so that innovative ideas from research labs are translated into solutions that benefit our society.

The above aims have been reflected in MCARS achievements/activities in the form of research articles, IPRs secured, invited talks/seminar/workshops conducted so far; and would continue to guide the centre’s commitment towards the vision of being one of the leading Multidisciplinary Research Centres of the country.

MCARS currently offers Ph.D. course in various disciplines such as synthetic biology, microbiology, virology, parasitology, structural biology and computational structural biology. The centre also offers a job-oriented Post Graduate Diploma in Molecular Diagnostics with specific focus on creating trained next-generation molecular diagnosticians.

MCARS welcomes students and research scholars, who are willing to learn from each other’s experience/expertise and value the diversity of scientific enquiry through collaborative work.

MCARS also welcomes academicians, researchers, entrepreneurs, industry experts as well as companies from any discipline of science to join hands with us to expand and pass on the benefits from our academic and research activity to the society.