Ms. Shilpi Suman, B. A. (Hons.), Centre of French and Francophone Studies, School of Language, Literature & Culture Studies, has been awarded a medal in the memory of late Sh. Devendra Kumar Gupta, for securing highest CGPA.

Ms. Sonali Sahni, Research Scholar, Centre of Social Medicine & Community Health, School of Social Sciences, has been awarded grant out of the interest accrued on the endowment of "Dr. Shaila Zurbrigg Prize", for the year 2006.

Ms. Dr. Anindya Das and Ms. Susrita Neogi, Research Scholars, Centre of Social Medicine & Community Health, School of Social Sciences, have been awarded a grant out of the interest accrued on the endowment of "Dr. Shaila Zurbrigg Prize" for the year 2007-2008.

Mr. Baldev Ram Khandoliyan and Mr. Vishvesh (M.A. Sanskrit Students), Special Centre for Sanskrit Studies, have been awarded "D.S. Gardi Sanskrit Scholarship" for the year 2007.

 

Ex- JNU students in Chandrayan-I Mission Team

Dr. Saroj Maity and Dr. Anup Das, two ex-students who completed their Ph.D. from JNU are part of the team that will receive and analyze surface and soil morphology data to be beamed to Earth Station by the Lunar Module. In the next few weeks Chandrayan-I will be placed in its operational circular orbit around Moon at a height of 100 km, which will be followed by dropping the Lunar Module onto the lunar surface. The high resolution infrared and X-ray cameras will probe lunar soil for the presence of various minerals and Helium-III in particular. This data will be beamed to Earth Stations setup by ISRO at various locations. One of these centers is located at Space Application Center, Ahmedabad. The two scientists are affiliated to the Geo-informatics and Techniques Development Group and are responsible for Remote Sensing and Image Processing of the procured data. Dr. Maity completed his Ph.D. from School of Physical Sciences under the supervision of Prof. H.B. Bohidar and Dr. Das obtained his Ph.D. from School of Environmental Sciences working under the supervision of Prof. Soumitra Mukherji.

In order to develop genetically engineered therapeutic antibodies against anthrax, an agreement was signed between Department of Science and Technology, under Drugs and Pharmaceuticals Research Program, and Prof. Rakesh Bhatnagar of Jawaharlal Nehru University with Arbro Pharmaceuticals Ltd. New Delhi as the company collaborators on 24 September, 2008.

M/s Arbro Pharmaceuticals Limited is leading manufacturer and exporter of pharmaceutical and diagnostic products. The company has state-of-the-art facilities that have been certified and internationally accredited for Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP). Arbro Pharmaceuticals Limited has been awarded the status of Star Export House. Its Analytical Division is a well equipped lab which has been rated amongst the top five labs of India and has been accredited by number of national agencies. It has been the vision of Mr. Vijay Kumar Arora, MD of Arbro to bring the highest level of healthcare within the reach of the common man. In the area of diagnostics Arbro manufactures kits for detection of diseases like tuberculosis, Hepatitis and food and water borne pathogens. Till now these products have mainly been imported at exorbitant costs keeping them out of the reach of masses. To this effect, the company is developing niche technologies and has recently taken up a patented technology from Department of Biotechnology for the diagnosis of tuberculosis.

Anthrax, an acute disease of cattle, sheep, goat and antelope, infects humans when there is exposure to spores from infected decaying animal or the infected animal is eaten. As anthrax is an endemic disease in a number of states of India including Orissa, Bihar, Andhra Pradesh and West Bengal, the Institute of Animal Health and Veterinary Biologicals recommends vaccination of the susceptible animals within six months in endemic areas. In spite of this aggressive vaccination program, every year there are reported cases of anthrax in animals and humans of the endemic regions. There were cases of human anthrax reported from Andhra Pradesh and Orissa because of infected meat consumption and handling in Leather factories in the beginning of 2008. Moreover, there is bioterrorism associated with anthrax since year 2001.

A range of vaccines have been developed against anthrax, including live attenuated anthrax strains, aro-mutants, toxin deficient mutants, live vaccine carriers of anthrax toxins and protein component vaccine followed by the discovery of more efficient delivery adjuvants. The current anthrax vaccine contains Protective Antigen (PA) with aluminium adjuvant, as PA has long been considered to be the singularly most important antigen required for specific immunity to anthrax. Currently available anthrax vaccine is associated with side effects and hence is not suitable for human use.

Although a number of anthrax vaccines have been developed and many are in pipe-line, strict vaccination of a large population is not possible. Passive immunization strategies have to be made available for the protection of non-immunized individuals. Moreover, often the symptoms in inhalational anthrax appear because of the high toxin levels in bloodstream. Systemic toxin levels can be neutralized with specific recombinant antibodies. But overloading the body with long-lived recombinant antibodies causes hypersensitive reactions. In this project it is proposed to create a bispecific single chain antibody neutralizing both Edema Factor and Lethal Factor. These small sized antibodies having faster clearance rate from the blood would help to curb the effects of both the toxins of B.anthracis in a single dose.

The team leader of this project, Prof. Rakesh Bhatnagar of School of Biotechnology, JNU has been working on molecular pathogenesis of Anthrax for past 20 years. On the basis of survey of the "Open 2 Source Global Anthrax Research Literature" (Kostoff, Ronald N.; Morse, Stephen A.; Oncu, Serkan, 2006) which used an "anthrax-focused query" on the Science Citation Index / Social Science Citation Index (SCI, 2006) database, Prof. Rakesh Bhatnagar was ranked among the top 10 (7th) eminent researchers publishing commendable papers on the subject. He has nearly 100 research articles in journals of international repute. He has several National and International patents to his credit. He has transferred the technology for the development of anthrax vaccine, which completed phase II clinical trials recently. Apart from the recombinant vaccines, he is also working on newer strategies for vaccine development like edible and DNA vaccines. Currently he is also involved in search of novel drug targets for anthrax and other infectious diseases prevalent in the country.
 

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