The Department of Biotechnology (DBT) will soon begin research in the area of tuberculosis with well-defined immediate, intermediate and long-term goals covering new antigen discovery for diagnostics and vaccines; development of newer adjuvant; and development of novel drug delivery systems, etc.
Other goals of the research area include investigating immune parameters to be used as correlates of early diagnosis and of protection; unravelling host-pathogen interactions at the molecular and cellular levels'; cloning, expression and purification of existing and new antigens of high purity for TB diagnostic assays (serological and cell based assays); development of suitable assay systems for animal and human studies/protection studies; development of knock outs/mutants experimental models; testing of the existing and new vaccine candidates in suitable animal models; new drug development/ inhibitor-design using novel targets/pathways/proteins using genomics/systems biology/chemico-genomics; and molecular characterization of Mtb strains across the country for clinical pathogenicity and vaccine discovery research.
The DBT has invited research proposals from scientists working in the universities, national laboratories & non-profit organizations with sound scientific background.
Besides, the DBT is also contemplating to create research resources/facilities as adjunct to tuberculosis research. The include one or two collection and storage sites for the well-characterized clinical specimen i.e. sputum, serum, CSF, urine, tissue etc; an international level repository/depository; centralized reagent bank, intending to establish and maintain a central reagent bank for a standard challenge strain for all vaccine studies, standard strain for preparation of BCG, fractions of sonicated M. tuberculosis, PPD/tuberculin for use in in vitro studies, M.tb proteins, M.tb specific monoclonal antibodies and other reagents for immunology and HLA studies of the Indian population; a central animal facility for breeding various inbred and knockout strains of mice/other models; centralized vaccine/drug testing facility; centralized assay development facility; clinical trial sites; and a unit for organizing tuberculosis-theme based symposium at least once in a year with national and international participation.