Author: Biotech Express

The International Conference on Bioengineering Solutions for Healthcare, Food, Energy, and Environment was held during April 9-10, 2021, at Jodhpur. The event was jointly organized by the Indian Institute of Technology, Jodhpur and the Biotech Research Society of India (BRSI). The event took place in an online mode through the Webex platform. The conference organizing committee included Prof Santanu Chaudhury, Director, IIT Jodhpur as the conference Patron, Professor Ashok Pandey, Distinguished Scientist, CSIR-IITR, Lucknow as the conference Chair and Dr. Meenu Chhabra, Associate Professor, IIT Jodhpur as the convener. The conference proceedings included three plenary, four Keynote, eleven invited, and…

Mahin Khatami, a former researcher with the U.S. National Institutes of Health who has argued in print that cancer results from ‘dark energy’ and that the government and the pharmaceutical industry are collaborating in ‘scientific/medical Ponzi schemes’ to keep people sick, has lost a paper to retraction. Khatami, who did not respond to a request for comment, has published several other articles in CTM, including a 2016 commentary titled “Safety concerns and hidden agenda behind HPV vaccines: another generation of drug-dependent society?,” and a 2018 perspectives piece, with a co-author in Osaka, Japan, titled “Analyses of repeated failures in cancer…

US pharmaceutical company Pfizer has sought fast-track approval for its vaccine in India. It is in talks with the Centre to roll out 5 crore doses between July and October this year, while asking for significant regulatory relaxations, according to PTI. It has told the government that the vaccine was suitable for everyone aged 12 years or older, and more importantly, can be safely stored for a month at 2 to 8 degrees Celsius. Pfizer has told the government its COVID vaccine shows “high effectiveness” against the India-dominant variant of the virus.  It is ready to roll out five crore doses…

Our study reports that this process, while effective, may be missing out on crucial contributions from other viral proteins. To support this, we showed that when the virus’ nucleocapsid (N) protein is included during the process, the resulting viruses are significantly more infectious. The study design involved producing pseudoviruses that were enveloped by the spike protein, and also packaged a green fluorescent protein, which gets expressed when the virus infects a target cell. From an initial panel of twenty-four viral proteins of the SARS CoV-2, we individually generated pseudoviruses in the presence of each, and checked the infectivity levels. The…

Transparency International (TI) is the world’s leading non-governmental anticorruption organisation, addressing corruption in its many forms through a network of more than 100 national chapters worldwide. The World Health Organization Collaborating Centre (WHO CC) for Governance, Accountability, and Transparency in the Pharmaceutical Sector was established in 2015 at the Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Toronto. Some of the observations are: 6 or 30% are being made by developers based in countries that do not align to best practice and require the reporting of clinical trial summary results within 12 months of trial completion. Clinical study reports are only…

Updated on 28 May, 2021 Following the controversial statement on allopathy, the Indian Medical Association’s offensive stance against Swami Ramdev continues. After complaints from the PMM and defamation case of 1000 crores, a complaint has been lodged against them in Delhi as well. A controversial video has surfaced of Baba’s in which yoga gurus react to the ongoing ‘Arrest Ramdev’ trend on social media, saying that ”Unka baap bhi arrest nahi kar sakta”. On behalf of the IMA, the Secretary-General, Dr. Jayesh Lele has filed this complaint. In the complaint given in Delhi’s IP State Police Station, IMA said that Swami Ramdev is raising…

Kamal Pratap Singh Pfizer eyes $26B in COVID-19 vaccine sales for the year 2021, with $3.5B (360 crore Rs) already in the bag. Moderna has predicted output of up to 1 billion doses this year. Adar Poonawalla on May 1 announced that the Serum Institute would be able to raise its monthly output to 100 million (10 crore) doses by July. India approved Russian made Sputnik V also, and is also planning to approve vaccines made by Pfizer, Moderna, Johnson & Johnson and others. Pfizer is making 300 crore doses (3 billion) whereas Indian vaccine manufacturer consortium of Bharat Biotech…

Seema Pavgi Upadhye Viruses constantly change through mutation, and new variants of a virus are expected to occur over time. Sometimes new variants emerge and disappear. Other times, new variants emerge and persist. In 2019 when SARS-CoV-2 burst upon the world, scientists knew that it was bad but thought it was stable as Corona Virus don’t mutate as readily as few other viruses like hepatitis, flu or AIDS. Coronaviruses are named for the crown-like spikes on their surfaces. They have a molecular “proof reading “ system that SARS-CoV-2 and its generation use to prevent damaging genetic errors when replicating. But…

KC Bansal1, Kutubuddin A. Molla2, and Sonia Goel3 1 The Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT, Asia, India, New Delhi 2 ICAR-National Rice Research Institute, Cuttack 3 SGT University, Gurugram Corresponding Author: kcbansal27@gmail.com Genome or gene editing mediated by CRISPR-Cas system has emerged as a powerful tool with a capability of precisely mutagenizing the genome of a wide range of organisms. The technology is based on an existing bacterial immune system, and is accepted and applied world-wide as a simple, precise and efficient method to genetically improve living organisms including animal and plant species for agriculture, food and nutrition.In…

Shrikant Nema1, 2 1Division of Vector-Borne Diseases, ICMR-National Institute of Research in Tribal Health, PO Garha, Nagpur Road, Jabalpur-482003, M.P., India; 2School of Biotechnology, Rajiv Gandhi Proudyogiki Vishwavidhalya (State Technological University of Madhya Pradesh), Bhopal, 462 023, Madhya Pradesh, India Correspondence: shrikantnema2014@gmail.com Abstract India along with 25 other countries has set the goal of malaria elimination by 2030. Out of these 26 countries, 22 are affected with COVID-19. We propose herewith that such countries, e.g., India must plan and manage the COVID-19 situations in a way not to hinder targeted malaria elimination goal. Keywords: COVID-19, Malaria elimination, India …