Infographic: Clinical trials made easy

Illustrated by Adrija Ghosh

Late in June, TheLifeofScience.com was involved in a firecracker of an outreach project. Faridabad-based Translational Health Science and Technology Institute (THSTI) celebrated its 10th Foundation Day on July 15, 2019. We were tasked with creating 4 comics to highlight some of THSTI’s biggest contributions to India’s public health!

We will be posting one infographic/comic every few weeks. This first one is about the significance of clinical trials, the challenges it poses to reliable and accessible public health for all, as well as THSTI’s efforts to streamline this process. Enjoy!

We had three weeks to research, conceptualise and produce a comic storytelling four research stories… gulp! Thankfully, over the years we had built up a network of amazing artists who we knew would be up for the task, and we got on board Mrinal Shah to lead this short project. Illustrators Adrija Ghosh and Nandini Moitra joined the team and work began in earnest.

Working on a project with the team scattered around (Bengaluru, Kolkata and Switzerland!) is certainly not easy, but we made it just in the nick of time. The celebrations at THSTI began with talks by renowned chemist CNR Rao, Department of Biotechnology Secretary Renu Swarup and Executive Director of THSTI Gagandeep Kang (not a bad gender ratio!). They were joined by senior officials from DBT, faculty from Regional Centre for Biotechnology and other institutes. Then came the most exciting (to us, at least) part – the exhibition! The exhibition featured THSTI’s work spanning its first ten years, this included the four comics we produced that were displayed on standees. Later there was a colloquium and a poster presentation for PhD students and fellows.

There was also an outreach programme where THSTI opened its doors to 200 students and faculty members from two schools and six colleges across NCR.

It was a really special feeling to receive feedback from the THSTI team that the comics were excellently received, and that our style of depicting complex research connected well with the audience, especially with students from schools!