The Hindu Business Line : Nicholas research unit ties up with Dept of Biotechnology

Drug discovery pact: The Minister for Science and Technology, Mr Kapil Sibal, with Ms Swati A. Piramal, Director, Nicholas Piramal India Ltd, addressing a press conference, in the Capital on Friday.

Our Bureau

Mumbai, Feb. 22 NPIL Research and Development Ltd (NRDL) has signed a drug discovery related agreement with the Department of Biotechnology (DBT) to screen bio-molecules from the microbial diversity collected from different ecological niches.

NRDL is the demerged research entity of drug-maker Nicholas Piramal India Ltd.

The public-private partnership involves nine institutes, with NRDL as the industrial partner. The project envisages a mega-scale screening programme for various environmental isolates. The focus of the project would be to screen for possible anti-cancer, anti-infective, anti-diabetes and anti-inflammation properties.

Project details

The total cost of the project is approximately Rs 25 crore, with Rs 18 crore being contributed by the DBT and Rs 7 crore coming from NRDL.

The participating institutes include: Nagpur’s National Environmental Engineering Research Institute (NEERI), Pune’s National Centre for Cell Science (NCCS), Delhi’s Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology (IGIB) and University of Delhi, South Campus (UDSC), Bhubaneshwar’s Institute of Life Sciences (ILS), Chennai’s MS Swaminathan Research Foundation (MSSRF), Amritsar’s Guru Nanak Dev University (GNDU), Imphal’s Institute of Bioresources and Sustainable Development (IBSD) and Panjim’s National Institute of Oceanography (NIO).

This is the first project in the country in which industry and academia will work together to screen such a large number of bacterial isolates, the company said.

Different academic institutes will isolate organisms specific to diverse ecological niches. For each sample, isolation of bacteria will be carried out on 30 different growth media.

This multi-institutional effort will generate approximately 7,000 isolates per month (1,000/institute), which will be sent to NRDL. Each of these institutes is an expert in niche areas of microbial biodiversity.

The microbial isolates have not been tested for potent medicinal properties, if any. The purpose of this study is to exploit the biodiversity of microbes. This will help in identifying specific therapeutic properties that may be further used to identify novel molecules, which may then be passed on to the drug development phase, a note from the company said.

Bank of leads

At NRDL’s facility at Goregaon in Mumbai, scientists would screen the samples for potential leads that could be developed into drugs. Natural diversity appears to be a novel source for new drugs worldwide, the note said.

The company hopes to create a bank of novel leads with specific potential that will aid in drug discovery.

The project will lead to the selection of potential drug candidate molecules, that can be taken to process scale-up strategies with appropriate partners. The credit-sharing in this project has been mutually worked out, the note said.

NPIL shares were marginally down on the BSE at Rs 282.80.