The Institute of Life Sciences (ILS), under the Department of Biotechnology, has successfully developed antibodies against the Chikungunya viral (CHIKV) infection and entered into a non-exclusive license for product commercialization.
ILS will work with a firm for product commercialization in profit sharing basis. The antibodies were created after decade-long research on the CHIKV disease at the ILS lab headed by Dr. Soma Chattopadhyay, a senior molecular virologist. Dr. Chattopadhyay was chosen for its Biotech Product, Process Development and Commercialisation Award 2019 from the Department of Biotechnology.
“Generation of antibodies has had a significant impact on the progress of CHIKV-based research. It will help researchers unravel the myriad aspects of virus pathogenesis. Moreover, with greater light shed upon the CHIKV infection biology using these antibodies, research communities are now a step closer to developing efficacious antivirals and other control strategies against the Chikungunya virus,” said Dr. Chattopadhyay to the media agency.
She has an experience of 20 years in the field and worked on various virus and pathogen infection.
“These CHIKV proteins were chosen as targets specifically for their critical role in virus survival as they largely govern the overall process of replication and infection in host cells. Development of these antibodies [nsP2 monoclonal, nsP1, nsP3 and nsP4 polyclonals] was, therefore, crucial to perform experiments pertaining to CHIKV infection, and thereby advance our basic knowledge ” she said.