AIDS Vaccine

Department of Biotechnology and IAVI Forge Partnership

The Department of Biotechnology (DBT), Ministry of Science & Technology, Government of India and the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative (IAVI) signed an agreement recently to address a major obstacle in AIDS vaccine development: the design of candidate vaccines to elicit neutralising antibodies against HIV. A new Indian Medicinal Chemistry programme, co-sponsored and co-funded by IAVI and the DBT, will comprise top Indian and US scientists tasked with accelerating the pace of AIDS vaccine discovery and developing creative concepts for the next generation of AIDS vaccines.

Said IAVI Board Member and Union Minister for Science & Technology and Earth Sciences, Kapil Sibal, "Vaccine research is quite critical, and hence the Health Ministry and the Science and Technology Ministry have joined hands to provide the effort the support it needs."

"This new partnership will broaden ongoing efforts in India to find an AIDS vaccine," said Seth Berkley, CEO and President of IAVI. "With our long-term Indian collaborators, the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare through the National AIDS Control Organisation and the Indian Council of Medical Research, IAVI has successfully conducted two phase-I clinical trials in the country.

"Only through these kinds of biotechnology ventures involving international collaborations and the sharing of scientific knowledge, can we hope to solve the complex biomedical problems of our times," stated Professor Maharaj K Bhan, Secretary, DBT.

The Indian programme will complement the work of IAVI's Neutralising Antibody Consortium (NAC), a team of internationally recognised scientists working on the neutralising antibody challenge.

EH News Bureau