When we talk about the
commercial application
and community
acceptance of the subject,
one of the technical
platform has been
Long DNA Synthesis
technology. While the
transfection vectors
have been chemically
synthesized, there is now
talk about synthesizing
a genome or even a
chromosome. Thus,
the things are move up
the scale on technology
development perspective.
Now, on the product
translational level,
the development of
Artemisinin drug at the
University of California,
Berkeley is an example
how plant compounds
were produced in a
microbe, Likewise I am
sure, we will see more
and more innovations in
future. It is the question of
who is going to go up first.
biology platform. On the
bioethics front, most of
the community in India
follows same biosafety
protocol. So, we don’t
have different ethical
standards here. However,
with time, there is need
to evolve guidelines.
We have been trying to
sensitize the govt agencies
for need to do that.
I have been in talks
with the Department
of Biotechnology, Govt
of India on the need
for a Delhi Declaration
which would be the
outcome of the high-level
discussions by experts.
People are going to ask
for a policy document
to guide on synthetic
biology. However, I am
told that DBT is sensitized
towards this aspect and
a new taskforce is going
to come up on this soon.
That’s good news.
Can you shed
some light on
the importance
of bioethics? What is the
current focus of
research activities
in your research
laboratory?
Biosafety, bioethics and
intellectual property rights
are all usually discussed
together at any synthetic We are trying to develop
a brand-new drug
discovery platform for
the community. Our
work has demonstrated
that what we used to call
non-coding intergenic
region between genes,
can be used to produce
brand new proteins. For
example, synthesis of
anti-malarial compounds
from intergenic regions
in yeast. Similarly,
anti-Leishmaniasis
compounds from E Coli
intergenic regions.
When I met few industry
members at Bangalore,
I was told that we would
require 200 PhDs for such
work. So, we are looking
for funding. If we get it,
we will do the scale up.
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