The Department of Biotechnology (DBT) and Swedish Governmental Agency for Innovation Systems (VINNOVA) will soon start four joint research projects in the field of biology, diagnosis and treatment of tuberculosis. While the DBT has allocated around Rs 5 crore for the project, the Swedish government has earmarked one million dollar for this top level research co-operation between India and Sweden.

Under this research co-operation agreement between the two countries, four Indo-Swedish projects, out of a total of 15 proposals, have been selected by DBT and VINNOVA and will receive funding for the coming three years. All these projects will commence in the first week of September this year, senior official in DBT said.

The four joint research projects that will commence in September include: doctors office diagnostic instrument for detection of Mycobacterium tuberculosis (M. tuberculosis) under in the field conditions adapted for use by unskilled personnel; mechanisms of protein synthesis and ribosome targeting antibiotic drugs in mycobacteria; biology of gene-deleted M. tuberculosis strains - immunological marker profiling; and structure-guided design of new antibacterial agents against dormant Mycobacterium tuberculosis.

Earlier in June this year, both the Department of Biotechnology, Ministry of Science and Technology, and Swedish Governmental Agency for Innovation Systems, have agreed to support top level research co-operation between Indian and Swedish scientists in the field of biology, diagnosis and treatment of tuberculosis.

The programme is one of the first bilateral co-operations, based on joint funding, between the two countries. Under this scheme, VINNOVA will fund the Swedish research teams and DBT the Indian side.

Hopefully, this collaborative focussed research programme on tuberculosis will be able to address important biomedical questions. The jointly funded projects have brought mutual goodwill by bringing together scientists from the top-of-the-line laboratories in both the countries, Dr S Natesh, Senior Adviser and Head, International Collaboration, DBT, said.

For the project doctors office diagnostic instrument for detection of M. tuberculosis under in the field conditions adapted for use by unskilled personnel, the project leaders are Dr Dag Ilver, Imego AB, and Dr Vijay K Chaudhary, University of Delhi, Department of Biochemistry, Delhi.

For the mechanisms of protein synthesis and ribosome targeting antibiotic drugs in mycobacteria, the project leaders include Dr Ehrenberg, Department of Cell and Molecular Biology, Uppsala University, and Dr. Umesh Varshney, Department of Microbiology and Cell Biology, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore.

In the Biology of gene-deleted M. tuberculosis strains---immunological marker profiling, the project leaders are Dr Nagaraja Valakunja, Department of Microbiology and Cell Biology, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore and Dr. Markus Maeurer, MTC, Karolinska Institute.

The project leaders for the project Structure-guided design of new antibacterial agents against dormant Mycobacterium tuberculosis are Dr D Sriram, Birla Institute of Technology & Science, Hyderabad and Dr Gunter Schneider, Department of Biochemistry & Biophysics, Karolinska Institute.