Ropar, March 28: Dr Javed N Agrewala, Professor, Centre for Biomedical Research, Indian Institute of Technology, Ropar, has been awarded the prestigious JC Bose Fellowship for his work on the development of novel vaccination strategies against tuberculosis.
Dr Agrewala with the help of his collaborator Prof David Jackson, University of Melbourne, Australia, has engineered a chimeric vaccine by linking proteins of mycobacterium tuberculosis with a unique lipid to target the vaccine to dendritic cells of the body.
Dendritic cells play a cardinal and sentinel role in initiating the immunity against any infection. This vaccine optimally activates the immunity and has been shown to protect against the disease better than the traditional BCG vaccine in the experimental model of tuberculosis. It is totally synthetic and, therefore, can be used to vaccinate AIDS patients and immuno compromised individuals.
In such people, BCG cannot be used because it can itself spread infection. Dr Agrewala developed this vaccine by studying the snags associated with BCG failure to protect public living in TB-endemic regions. He believes that this vaccine may have potential in future to successfully protect against TB.
Source Tribune India
