Institute of Advanced Virology starts V-Talk, a science lecture series on viruses and infectious disease

3 November 2026

Kerala's Institute of Advanced Virology (IAV) has begun 'V-Talk (Virology Talk)', a lecture series to encourage scientific discussion on virology and other infectious diseases. IAV Director Dr. C.H. Suresh opened the series and called for stronger virology research to save lives. He said V-Talk would be an open platform for researchers to share new ideas and findings. The first lecture, on Hepatitis E virus infection in pregnancy and how it affects mother and foetus, was given by Dr. Ravi Prakash Arya. Dr. Arya is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Biotechnology at Assam University. He said more research was needed on how the infection spreads during pregnancy.