Author: Biotech Express

by Kamal Pratap Singh, kamal9871@gmail.com Despite various questions about effectiveness, safety and availability there seems a hurry to release COVID treatment by individuals, scientists, organizations and Nations. There are numerous examples of failures like Solidarity trial candidates – remdesivir, hydroxychloroquine, lopinavir/ritonavir and interferon, AstraZeneca’s Calquence, Novartis’ Ilaris, Sanofi & Regeneron’s Kevzara, Eli Lilly antibody drug, Roche’s Actemra, Glenmark’s Favipiravir, Biocon’s Itolizumab, Patanjali’s Coronil and many many more. In this article we are discussing how the organizations came up with magical treatment and how these products were criticized and soon vanished from the news headlines, even though there was urgent need…

by Dr Seema P Upadhaye While we have a lot of promising COVID-19 vaccine candidates ready to roll out in the earliest timeline possible, this is the first time that a vaccine for such a novel infection has been developed in such an accelerated manner. That also leaves space for a lot of trial errors and side effects we might be exposed to, once the vaccination drives start. Experts pointed out that the lack of transparency in releasing crucial information and data could lead to stricter scrutiny by regulators in many countries and mistrust among people. Vaccines, though they are…

Chennai-based volunteer served a Rs 5 crore compensatory legal notice to the Serum Institute of India (SII) against the neurological complications he claimed to have developed after being administered a test dose of Oxford-AstraZeneca ‘Covishield’ vaccine for coronavirus. The 40-year-old volunteer, who works as a business consultant, had, in the legal notice, stated that he “must be compensated, in the least, for all the sufferings that he and his family have undergone” because the candidate vaccine was not safe. The participant has been diagnosed with acute neuro encephalopathy, which he alleged was a side-effect of the ‘Covishield’ shots he took…

By Saurabh Mandal Email- mandalsaurabh93@gmail.com The COVID-19 pandemic has turned the attention of everyone, toward scientists and researchers across the globe. Because, the general public is eagerly waiting for a vaccine or any targeted therapy, no other disease outbreak had seen such a situation before. It was 11thMarch 2020, when the World Health Organization (WHO) has announced COVID-19 as a pandemic. Since then, India is trying hard to suppress the virus spread. India became the second worst-hit nation in the world by the second week of September 2020, which has now crossed 8 million total cases and in the worldwide…

This article lists agricultural universities (AUs) in India, by state or territory. Although a number of Indian universities offer agricultural education, the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), the main regulator of agricultural education, recognizes three “Central Agricultural Universities”, four Deemed Universities and 63 “State Agricultural Universities”, as of January 2021. The state with the most agricultural universities in India is Uttar Pradesh with seven universities (one deemed, one central and five state universities). There are no agricultural universities in Arunachal Pradesh, Goa, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Sikkim or Tripura, nor on any of the union territories, except Delhi and Jammu…

NATURE OF SUPPORT (i) The scheme provides a consolidated monthly remuneration of Rs. 75,000/- p.m. (ii) MKB-YRFP fellows in addition will receive a research/contingency grant of Rs. 20.00 lakh per year for hiring manpower, purchase of consumables, minor equipment, domestic travel and other contingent expenditure to be incurred for the implementation of research proposal selected for the fellowship. (iii) Can engage one manpower (JRF/SRF/Project Assistant/Project Associate) under him/her. Capital equipment will be procured in the name of the institute where the fellow proposes towork and value of the whole set of the equipment should not exceed Rs.10.00 lakh. (iv)…

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced a Rs 900 crore stimulus towards research and development of the Covid-19 vaccine. The funds for research have been allocated to the Department of Biotechnology as part of the stimulus package announced by the finance minister. “India is waiting for an effective vaccine to come – one or many more. We are spending on research and development apart from what we will give when the vaccine is ready to be bought and distributed. We are also keeping abreast of the developments around the vaccine,” Sitharaman said. Prasanna Deshpande, deputy managing director at the Hyderabad based…

Recently Prof Pandey became the third Indian scientist to have h-index more than 100. In the study the scientists of Stanford University created a database of more than 100,000 top scientists of the world and made ranking on the basis of standardised citation indicators such as citations, H-index, co-authorship and a composite indicator. The database, a work of John Ioannidis, Kevin Boyack and Jeroene Bass from the departments of Medicine, Epidemiology and Public Health and Biomedical Data Science, University of Stanford, California, USA has been published in the October 16 issue of PLos Biology. These scientists are from across all scientific…

Dr Harsh Vardhan, Minister of Science & Technology, Health and Family Welfare and Earth Sciences, today launched a website that gives comprehensive information about the numerous COVID-19 clinical trials that CSIR is engaged in partnership with Industry, other government departments and ministries. Called CuRED or CSIR Ushered Repurposed Drugs, the website provides information about the drugs, diagnostics and devices including the current stage of the trials, partnering institutions and their role in the trials and other details. The site can be accessed at https://www.iiim.res.in/cured/ or http://db.iiim.res.in/ct/index.php. CSIR is exploring multiple combination clinical trials of antivirals with host-directed therapies for the…