Swedish Governmental Agency for Innovation Systems (VINNOVA) and the Department of Biotechnology (DBT), Ministry of Science and Technology, India, have agreed to support top level research co-operation between Indian and Swedish scientists in the field of “Biology, diagnosis and treatment of Tuberculosis”.
The programme is one of the first bilateral co-operations, based on joint funding, between the two countries. Under this scheme, VINNOVA will fund the Swedish research teams and DBT the Indian side. VINNOVA is committing around SEK 16 million to this program.
Four Indo-Swedish projects, out of a total of 15 proposals, have been selected by DBT and VINNOVA and will receive funding for the coming three years. These are:
Doctors office diagnostic instrument for detection of M. tuberculosis under “in the field” conditions adapted for use by unskilled personnel.
Project leaders: Dr. Dag Ilver, Imego AB, and Dr. Vijay. K. Chaudhary, University of Delhi, Department of Biochemistry, Delhi.
Mechanisms of protein synthesis and ribosome targeting antibiotic drugs in Mycobacteria.
Project leaders: Dr. Måns Ehrenberg, Department of Cell and Molecular Biology, Uppsala University, and Dr. Umesh Varshney, Department of Microbiology and Cell Biology, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore.
Biology of gene-deleted M. tuberculosis strains - immunological marker profiling.
Project leaders: Dr. Nagaraja Valakunja, Department of Microbiology and Cell Biology, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore and Dr. Markus Maeurer, MTC, Karolinska Institute.
Structure-guided design of new antibacterial agents against dormant Mycobacterium tuberculosis.
Project leaders: Dr. D. Sriram, Birla Institute of Technology & Science, Hyderabad and Dr. Gunter Schneider, Department of Biochemistry & Biophysics, Karolinska Institute.
“This collaboration is an important step to further strengthening the research and innovation collaboration between the countries. We appreciate the very good relations established between DBT and VINNOVA and welcome further Indo-Swedish co-operation in Science and Technology”, says Sylvia Schwaag Serger, Director, International Collaboration & Networks, VINNOVA.
”We are very pleased with our collaboration with Sweden. The jointly funded projects have brought mutual goodwill by bringing together scientists from the top-of-the-line laboratories in both the countries”, says Dr. S. Natesh, Senior Adviser and Head, International Collaboration, DBT. “Hopefully, this collaborative focused research programme on tuberculosis will be able to address important biomedical questions”.
