The Hindu Business Line : RGCB promises to be catalyst for industrial growth in Kerala

Kochi, Nov. 23 Kerala has earned the distinction of having a premier biotechnology school following the takeover of the Rajiv Gandhi Centre for Biotechnology (RGCB), Thiruvananthapuram, by the Department of Biotechnology under the Union Ministry of Science and Technology.

Though the Centre took over RGCB in August, with retrospective effect from April 1, a formal MoU between the State and Central Governments in this connection has yet to be signed and it is expected to take place before year-end.

Increased funds

The takeover has paved the way for increased allocation of funds from the Union Government to the tune of Rs 20 crore a year as against Rs 8 crore from the State Government, which has in fact facilitated the RGCB to widen its sphere of activities.

Being a research centre, the institute needs sustained investment, which is also high-risk investment that only the Central Government could afford to make, Prof M. Radhakrishna Pillai, Director, RGCB, told Business Line.

He said that being a national institute, there could be direct participation of WHO, and national and international agencies in research and development programmes.

The RGCB Vision-2020 is to transform it into a most modern R&D centre in the Central Government sector functioning in a corporate manner, in a unique biotech park located in one of the richest biodiversity spots in the world, he said.

The Centre, ranked India’s best biotechnology school in 2006 ahead of IITs, JNU, Anna University, MKU and Central Universities in a survey by Biospectrum in Jan 2007, would allow clusters of biotechnology industries around RGCB and that in turn would generate more employment opportunities in the State.

“In fact, history shows that this is the only way to attract and develop biotechnology based industry,” Prof Pillai said. The success story in the US was around Stanford, MIT, Yale and Harvard, while in Bangalore, it was around IISc. Similarly, the success story in Kerala would be around RGCB, he said.

Areas of activity

According to him, biotechnology will be the basis and reason for new generation IT industries coming to the state. RGCB as a national institute can play significant role in global optimisation and application in drug modelling; bar-coding life; artificial intelligence based on biological process; neural networking; prediction of carbohydrate and protein structure and function; and learning based process control for manufacturing.

The other areas where the Institute could contribute are in globally validating Kerala’s traditional health care systems: Ayurgenomics, molecular medicine and food fortification; Spices Biotechnology; biotechnological intervention in high potential medicinal plants, Prof. Pillai said.

He said that having been shortlisted for deemed university status by the UGC, it would offer courses for B Tech and M Tech in Biotech and pharmaceutical engineering; M Sc in clinical biotechnology and systems biology; MBA in biotechnology management; and MPH with specialisation in clinical biotech and environmental biotech.

Translational Biotechnology would have medical biotechnology covering molecular medicine, molecular endocrinology and reproduction, molecular microbiology, cancer biology and neurobiology. Genetic Engineering covering spices and medicinal plants would have plant molecular biology, he said.

The activities at the RGCB have acquired momentum following the announcement by the Union Finance Minister, Mr P Chidambaram in Budget speech on Feb 28, 2006 that the Centre would be made an autonomous institute under the Union Ministry of Science and Technology. The Kerala government had, however, issued the handing over order on Feb 8, 2007.

The major achievements since then included development of an anti-inflammatory and anti-microbial mouthwash consisting of three commonly used medicinal herbs for controlling radiation associated mucositis in patients being treated with radiation therapy for oral cancer jointly by the investigators at the Regional Cancer Centre, Thiruvananthapuram and the RGCB. Besides, the Institute has developed diagnostic techniques for infectious diseases such as Dengue fever, chikungunia, HCV, Cholera etc.

According to Prof Pillai expected breakthroughs in the near future included marketable, ultra sensitive diagnostic kits for Dengue fever, chikungunya and tuberculosis; high-throughput cell based screening assays for target based drug screening for cancer, viral and neurological diseases; Tumor stem cell based screening systems for anti-cancer design; and identification of novel biomarkers for disease predisposition, stress tolerance, drug sensitivity etc. in humans and plants.

The RGCB is equipped with state of the art equipments for modern biology research in over 1.5 lakh square feet price laboratory space. Besides, it has start up animal research facility and transgenic green house, he said.

A significant development of late is that the RGCB has become the attraction of several industries for the validation and evaluation of their products both from India and abroad. “We are presently in negotiation as to the further development and processing of our unique anti-bacterial and anti-inflammatory mouthwash”. Besides, currently several bioactive compounds are undergoing their functional evaluation at various laboratories of the RGCB. Apart from this a major long-term initiative with the public sector Hindustan Latex Limited (HLL) for vaccines and diagnostics being jointly prepared, he said..

Negotiations are also in progress for transferring patented technologies from RGCB for commercial applications. An incubation facility will be established at the Institute to cater to the needs of biotechnology industries. Besides, infrastructural and technical expertise of the RGCB would be made available to both established and small/start up industries to enable them to become more competitive in the generation of biotechnology based products and process, Prof Pillai said.

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