The Council for Industrial and Scientific Research (CSIR) has bagged US patents for its two recent inventions. The new patents, granted last month, are for the novel drug-screening method used for a gene based anti-tuberculosis treatment and its herbal drug, recently developed for the treatment of breast cancer.

While the reported gene based method for the screening of anti-tuberculosis drugs by using essential and regulatory genes of mycobacteria as drug target (US Patent: 6,645,505 issued on 11-11-03) was developed by Chandigarh based scientists, the development of herbal chemical composition for the treatment of cancer was part of a joint research programme involving CSIR scientists from Hyderabad and Jammu (US Patent: 6,649,650 issued on 18-11-03).

The novel screening process relates to a method for making recombinant Saccharomyces cerevisiae. The method includes the steps of amplifying one or more whiB-like genes of Mycobacteria by polymerase chain reaction (PCR), cloning the amplified one or more whiB-like genes into a plasmid, transforming the clone into an E. coli using a first shuttle vector, amplifying the clone, introducing the amplified clone into a second shuttle vector, introducing said second shuttle vector into Saccharomyces cerevisiae.

While the drug screening method taking advantage of the yeast two-hybrid system is known in literature, the novelty of the method of the invention is to use the whiB genes which are regulatory genes of mycobacteria, whose functions have not been reported so far, as drug target by using the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae as a surrogate host. The inventors are Vishal Soni, Lakshami Pathi Kandrika and Pushpa Agrawal.

The herbal drug developed by CSIR scientists is a novel synergistic composition of lignans exhibiting anticancer activities for breast, cervix, neuroblastoma, colon, liver, lung, mouth, ovary and prostate cancer obtained from the plant extract of Cedrus deodra. The composition comprises of (-)-Matairesinol in the range of 9 to 13per cent by weight, (-)-Wikstromol in the range of 75 to 79per cent by weight, Dibenzylbutyrolactol in the range of 7 to 11per cent by weight, and unidentified material in the range of 2.6 to 3per cent by weight. Further, the synergistic composition of lignan is used in combination with pharmaceutically acceptable carriers for inhibiting growth of various human cancer cell lines selected from breast, cervix, neuroblastoma, colon, liver, lung, mouth, ovary and prostate tissues.

The inventors are Janaswamy Madhusudana Rao, Pullela Venkata Srinivas, Jhillu Singh Yadav, Kondapuram Vijaya Raghavan, Ajit Kumar Saksena, Mutiah Shanmugavek, Himani Kampasi and Gulam Nabi Qazi.