NPIL Research & Development Ltd (NRDL) has signed an agreement with the Department of Biotechnology (DBT), New Delhi on 'screening for bio-molecules from microbial diversity collected from different ecological niches', thereby initiating an industry - university/national institute partnership programme in drug discovery, informed Nicholas Piramal India Ltd.

An agreement was signed in the presence of Kapil Sibal, minister of science & technology and earth sciences between the DBT, New Delhi, and NRDL, Mumbai, to initiate an industry - university/national institute partnership programme in drug discovery.

The Department of Biotechnology has recently initiated a network project called 'screening for bio-molecules from microbial diversity collected from different ecological niches'. The public private partnership project involves nine institutes, with NRDL, Mumbai, as an industrial partner. The total cost of the project is approximately Rs 250 million, Rs 180 million of which are being contributed by the DBT and Rs 70 million by NRDL.

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

The project envisages a mega-scale screening programme for various environmental isolates. 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. 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 7000 isolates/month (~1000/institute), which will be regularly sent to NRDL, the industrial partner of the project. 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.