Mission-oriented Research Leads Frequently to a Product for Industry
G.P. Talwar, Jagdish Chandra Gupta, SA Zaheer, Shripad A. Patil, Avi Kumar Bansal, Dipankar Nandi, Bakulesh Khamar, Somesh Gupta, Hemant Kumar Vyas, Krishna M. Ella · Acta Scientific Pharmaceutical Sciences · 2022
This article reviews research which we undertook to combat Leprosy, of which the largest number of patients are in India.We had to learn first why a person becomes victim to this disease while more than 98% of us are immune to it.The defect is their inability to react to some key antigens of M. leprae.Having found that, the next issue was whether we can do anything to overcome this defect.We developed a vaccine against Leprosy which is based on a cultivable, non-pathogenic mycobacteria originally coded as Mw.The gene sequence of Mw has been determined and it has been named as Mycobacterium indicus pranii (MIP), Pran is my family name and nii, the National Institute of Immunology from where trials were carried out.Heat killed MIP given as adjunct to standard drugs expedites recovery of patients.It also renders a high percentage of multibacillary patients Lepromin positive from otherwise permanent Lepromin negativity status.Patients treated with MIP recover free of ugly blemishes which Drugs alone fail to achieve.MIP is also effective in treatment of Category II, Difficult to treat tuberculosis patients.It is a potent invigorator of immune response and enhances significantly antibody titres of the anti-hCG vaccine under development for control of pregnancy.At the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi, it has been used for curing ugly ano-genital warts.