Dundee-India partnership to create Drug Discovery Unit in Bangalore

Published On Thu 28 Aug 2014 by Roddy Isles

The University of Dundee has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Bangalore BioCluster in India with the aim of creating a joint Drug Discovery Centre to tackle antimicrobial resistance.

There is already an active programme of scientific collaboration between Dundee and the Bangalore BioCluster. The Biocluster is jointly supported by the Departments of Biotechnology and Atomic Energy of the Government of India.

Antimicrobial resistance is a hugely important issue for the whole world and one where scientific innovation needs to meet advanced biotechnology to deliver new, badly needed, therapeutics. Antimicrobial resistance threatens the effective prevention and treatment of an ever-increasing range of infections caused by bacteria, parasites, viruses and fungi. It is a hugely significant issue in relation to hospital-acquired infections and in major diseases such as tuberculosis and malaria.

 The University of Dundee will use the experience and leverage of its well-established and successful Drug Discovery Unit to help accelerate the establishment of a similar unit in Bangalore. Together, the two units will work in partnership in a spirit of Open Innovation.

Professor Mike Ferguson, Regius Professor of Life Sciences at the University of Dundee, said, “We are proud to be partnering with the Bangalore BioCluster in antimicrobial drug discovery. The BioCluster is a powerhouse of Life Sciences research and we look forward to applying our combined expertise to one of the most important of medical dilemmas – antimicrobial resistance.

“In collaboration with medical charities and industry, the Drug Discovery Unit at The University of Dundee has successfully delivered candidate drugs for three infectious diseases. We look forward to helping our colleagues in Bangalore establish similar capabilities by receiving Indian scientists, sharing expertise and materials and performing joint research projects."?

Professor Satyajit Mayor, Director of the National Centre for Biological Science and the Institute for Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine in Bangalore, said, “We are really looking forward to this collaboration since we have a number of research programmes that would immediately benefit from this engagement. The Drug Discovery Unit at Dundee represents an extraordinary experiment in drug discovery. Located in the heart of an academic institution, the Drug Discovery Unit at Dundee has successfully shown how industry expertise can be brought into this environment to leverage the best of both worlds. We envisage a huge synergy of capabilities between Dundee and Bangalore in the area of antimicrobial resistance and other areas in the future.”

The MoU has been signed during a visit to India by a UK business delegation led by the Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg. Professor Ferguson is part of the delegation.

Roddy Isles
Head of Press
TEL: 01382 384910
MOBILE: 07800 581902
E-MAIL: r.isles@dundee.ac.uk