The staff in the Department consisted of one Lecturer who initially joined the Pneumoconiosis Department in 1960 to participate in the industrial/mining workers and provide the required expertise in instrumentation and measurement studies on technology. The expertise was extensively utilized for about 15 years by the founder Director of the Institute for setting up the instrumentation systems and application of sensors and signal processing equipments to acquire data from subjects in the cardiac catheterisation laboratory. During this period, the Department provided services for comprehensive studies on aerohemodynamics in broncho-pulmonary diseases on patients admitted in the CRC ward as well as for clinical studies on soldiers (High attitude pulmonary oedema subjects) carried out under the direct supervision of Late Prof. R. Viswanathan. The Department not only helped in the installation, maintenance and servicing of sophisticated equipments imported for these studies but also on many occasions modified or improvised instrumentation to suit the requirements of the experiment or the environmental conditions. Thus, in several instances valuable foreign exchange was saved.

The Department shouldered the responsibility of actual recording of patients data for various publications and a noteworthy achievements of the Department is its participation in the study on the chemoreflexes in man, carried out in collaboration with the visiting scientist, Prof. A. Guz., from the Charing Cross Hospital Medical School, London, which is infact the first report on J receptors in man.

A variety of electronic equipments for respiratory function evaluation was imported in the Institute from 1960 onwards. These were installed, serviced and maintained to acquire valuable data from normal subjects as well as patients. The Department collaborated in setting up a comprehensive Computerised Pulmonary Investigation Unit at the Hamidia Hospital, Bhopal, in 1984 for the management of the MIC gas tragedy patients.

The Department, in collaboration with the Department of Cardio- Respiratory Physiology designed and fabricated in the Institute workshop, low-cost non-automated mechanical spirometers for lung Function Evaluation and supplied these spirometers to many Government Hospitals and Teaching Institutes (including PGI Chandigarh, AIIMS/LNJP Hospital) and for their studies on High Altitude. Improved versions of these instruments and breathing valves were developed under an ICMR research scheme and these equipments are in continuous use in our Clinical Research Centre.

The Department participated in the teaching of students of M.Sc., Microbiology course of Delhi University in 1983-85 and the Diploma in Microbiology and M.D. (Biochemistry) at the Institute. The Department has provided informal instruction on Medical Instrumentation to post-graduate students as and when required. It has participated in various workshops, orientation courses and other courses, related to bio-medical Instrumentation conducted at the Institution of Electronic and Telecommunication Engineers, Central Scientific Instrument Organisation, Bhaba Atomic Research Centre and The Institution of Engineers (India).