CCMB scientists develop new drug assay system
PTI - Hyderabad

In a significant development that will please animal lovers like Maneka Gandhi, researchers at the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB) here have developed a novel method for testing drugs without using mice.

L S Shashidara and Poonam Bandari at the CCMB have created through genetic engineering new type of fruit flies (Drosophila), which can be used for screening and validating drugs instead of employing mice, CCMB director, Lalji Singh told reporters recently. The ‘transgenic’ flies breed quickly and have a short lifetime of about 15 days so that the screening can be done fast, he said, adding that the assay system is a lot cheaper than using animal and the drug development cost would be much reduced.

The transgenic flies at CCMB were specifically bred for evaluating the efficacy of existing and new drugs against certain types of cancer. The CCMB discovery has been reported in the journal ‘Oncogne.’

Although fruit flies have been extensively used, it is the first time where transgenic flies have been used for drug screening and validation, Sashidara said.

He said an American company has already given CCMB a contract to validate some of its new anti-cancer drugs using the drosophila assay system.

The CCMB assay system has also been selected by Council for Scientific and Industrial Research for validating several plant-derived molecules that show anti-cancer properties, he said.

“Our transgenic drosophila system is available for use by any Indian pharma companies to validate potential drugs against cancer,” Singh added. CCMB would also undertake projects to develop drosophila system for screening drugs for diseases other than cancer, he said.