Networking Consortia

Catalysing Research

Dr Swati Subodh from the Centre For Genomic Application, (an IGIB-IMM Collaboration) reviews networking initiatives and collaborations within the Indian scientific community

Dr Swati Subodh

A quick look at our high school science books is all it takes for us to realise that in biological sciences, over the years significant scientific achievement was attributed to a single scientist, or at best two. It was not until the 1980s and 90s that the milestones ceased to be person centric; this was the advent of collaborative research. 1990 saw the commencement of the Human Genome Project (HGP), coordinated by the US Department of Energy and the National Institutes of Health. During the early years of the HGP, the Wellcome Trust (UK) became a major partner; additional contributions came from Japan, France, Germany, China, and others. The efforts that went into accomplishing this mammoth project were highlighted when the final draft of the findings of HGP was released in 2003 and it was obvious that this couldn't have been done by a single institution. In India the culture of collaborative high end research is beginning to emerge. With India's contribution to world science in terms of scientific publications at only 2.3 percent compared to China's 12 percent, the Indian government has taken proactive steps to rectify this trend, including introducing a plethora of new policies and funding initiatives.

Policies and projections

The Indian government has increased its budget allocated for biotechnology between 8-11 percent in the last few years. According to Department of Science and Technology (DST), overall science spending will increase from $4.5 billion in 2006-2007 to $21.5 billion in 2012. The budget increases of Department of Biotechnology (DBT) and Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) have exceeded the rate of inflation over the past decade. Also, now Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) and DST have increased their financial support for biological sciences research. This in turn has increased the average size of a grant by about 30 percent (from $10,000 to $15,000 per year).

Random collaborations are now being substituted with strategic partnerships backed by corporate-style management. DBT has struck alliances with several European Union (EU) countries, including a collaboration with Finland to develop medical diagnostics, and 14 new research collaborations with Switzerland in agriculture. Norway, Finland, Denmark, UK, Australia, and Canada are allocating substantial dedicated funds for bilateral research with India.

DBT's initiative, the Stem Cell Institute, is the first of what may become a very exciting and collaborative campus of several adjacent research institutes. The other institutes, which are in an early planning phase, include a center for platform technologies (provisionally called the Bangalore BioCluster).

In February 2009 the Union cabinet approved the National Institute of Biomedical Genomics (NIBMG) in West Bengal. This DBT funded institute plans to conduct inter-disciplinary research by means of alliances. It is believed that ultimately these alliances will become so interwoven that NIBMG and its partners will become completely dependent on each other for carrying out their research.

One other such initiative is ICMR and World Health Organization project on National Cancer Registry programme which is expected to network approximately 200 hospitals and Ministry of Health and Family Welfare's Integrated Disease Surveillance programme.

A major step forward is the New Millennium India Technology Leadership Initiative (NIMITLI) and Small Business Innovation Research Initiative (SBIRI) programmes. With these initiatives, industry partners get included in government R&D. The funds allocated to the corporate sector for research was an abysmal 1.4 percent in the five year period ending 2005. Under the newly launched Biotechnology Industry Research & Development Assistant Programme (BIRAP) / Biotechnology Industry Partnership Programme (BIPP) industries are being promoted to write and execute their own projects which would translate into product development and generation of patents.

Young researchers are also being encouraged to write innovative, product or process oriented research projects accompanied with a strong business plan for its execution. Teams of the 'think-tanks' and business strategists are being brought together and mentored. Notable among these are the Intel-DST-IUSSTF alliances' India Innovation Pioneers Challenge and the DBT-Stanford University's joint Stanford India Biodesign programme.

Recently India has become part of the Human Frontier Science Programme (HFSP) under which Research Grants are awarded for novel collaborations involving extensive collaboration among teams of scientists working in different countries and disciplines.

Success stories

The Government of India has committed Rs. 150 crores ($38 million) towards the newly launched Open Source Drug Discovery (OSDD) initiative. This programme, with global partnership aims at providing a platform where the best minds can collaborate and collectively endeavour to solve the complex problems associated with discovering novel therapies for neglected tropical diseases. An equivalent amount of funding is proposed to be raised from international agencies and philanthropists. It is proposed to work as a Virtual Pharma company by networking between academia and industry. OSDD has attracted many enthusiastic undergraduate and postgraduate students who are actively contributing by means of different 'work packages' given to them by a central project coordinator. All inputs are marked in the name of the contributor. This will provide a unique opportunity for scientists, doctors, technocrats, students and others with diverse expertise to work for a common cause. A few believe that Indian scientists will take time to get used to this concept, others are not so sure. A senior scientist at a hospital known for some of its pioneering work admits that the idea of making information 'open source' prior to publication is worrisome 'especially in our field which is becoming increasingly competitive'. As this concept becomes commonplace and the issues of credit and IPR protection made more explicit the initiative is expected to catalyse research in its various thrust areas which have so far seen only close funded projects.

Another CSIR initiative is the newly launched Zebrafish GenomeWiki project for community annotation of the zebrafish genome. "Gene centric information exists in different formats and in obscure sources/sites which are difficult to assimilate. In this wikipedia information exists in a standard unified form accessible to all users," explains Dr Sridhar Sivasubbu, scientist at Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology (IGIB) and one of the two principal investigators of this project. The Zebrafish GenomeWiki 'talks to other databases' and thus is more comprehensive. A notable component of this project is the 'Micro attribution system' which recognises and saves the task completed along with the name of the contributor. These contributions are visible on the site as well as any publications or patents which maybe generated; a definite relief for scientists apprehensive of distribution of credits and misuse of their efforts. Although the site is still in its beta version the domestic response from postgraduate students and research scholars for participation has been overwhelming admits Sivasubbu. International partners in this project with IGIB are Mayo Clinic, USA; Rochester University, USA; and Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology, Singapore.

Another successful initiative is DBT's Indo-US Vaccine Action program (VAP) which was originally designed to encompass laboratory based research, epidemiology studies, field trails, vaccine quality control, and delivery of vaccines. However under the VPA, US and Indian scientists have carried out collaborative research projects directed toward development of vaccines and immunodiagnostic reagents, and to address other issues which are important for vaccine research. VAP has proved to be a front runner amongst all bilateral programmes in health and biomedical research and has led to the development of several vaccines.

The recently concluded project on Indian Genome Variation Database (IGVdb), spearheaded by Prof. Samir Brahmachari, was a networked effort between six CSIR laboratories and Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata along with industrial partners like The Centre for Genomic Application and Silicogene. "This was the largest collaborative project in the field of biosciences in the 10th 5 year plan," states Dr Mitali Mukherjee, the Convener of this initiative. "An initiative of this magnitude required exemplary work and accountability" adds Mukherjee. She explains, "One of the other highlights of this project was that relatively younger scientists were made coordinators and nodal officers and thus we did not follow a typical 'top down' approach". The other aspect that stands out is when one sees the numerous publications that were generated from this project. The credit is shared equally under 'Indian Genome Variation Consortia' which enlists the name of all the individuals and the different aspects of the project that they were involved in. Mukherjee further adds, "Any later publications arising out of the IGV initiative will have 'Indian Genome Consortia' as a co-author". Members of IGV Consortium are also exploring innovative applications in niche markets.

Another large scale project is the ongoing project entitled "Genomics and Proteomics of Response to Typhoid and Cholera Vaccines" funded by NIH spearheaded by Dr Partha Majumder, Director, TCG-ISI Centre for Population Genomics (CpG), Institute of Molecular Medicine, Kolkata. This project is a collaborative effort between CpG, NICED, RTI and Duke University. Majumdar states, "It is important to attack a scientific problem from multiple angles. A single institute may not necessarily have the expertise or the capacity required to address a large biological problem from mutiple angles, in such cases collaborative efforts are crucial". He further adds, "Funding agencies are more cognizant of the fact that multi-institutional, collaborative projects can enable addressing bigger scientific problems that is likely to have greater scientific and societal impacts".

Such success stories prove that Indian science is gradually maturing towards a unified yet diversified approach towards solving the intricacies of science.

Challenges and the way ahead

Funding: Large centers of research tend to become oversubscribed to the detriment of smaller institutes and universities. This is reflected in the fact that 50 percent of the R&D funding in the five year period ending 2005 was distributed to just four percent of the nearly 1800 institutes. One way of overcoming this roadblock is by enhancing their role in wider networked projects with larger centers for capability building while simultaneously pursuing the cultivation of scientific excellence. Apparently, funding per se is not a problem in India as most good research proposals submitted to funding agencies are funded. However, the size of the grants is usually very small ($10,000-15,000/year), which forces Indian scientists to apply for many grants. Bigger collaborative projects should be encouraged. Philanthropy also needs to be directed toward India's research efforts.

Manpower: Even though thousands of science degrees are awarded in India (nearly 8500 in five year period ending in 2005), the research capabilities of this large scientific work force are limited. The trend of funds are towards thrust areas such as stem cell biology, transgenic crops, AIDS vaccines where the basic research capabilities need to be strengthened before applications can be considered. Partnership between research institutes and colleges represent another avenue for exposing undergraduates to active scientists and modern research. Fellowships like the Wellcome Trust/DBT India Alliance and HFSC will allow for valuable international training, and also cements a strong connection and possible international collaboration with an Indian laboratory. India must also look to its own midlevel and senior scientists to invest time in leadership positions and contribute to the 'big picture', especially as new institutes and programmes are being launched.

Infrastructure: Most institutes are relatively small and the faculty work on very diverse topics. Without nearby collaborations and resources (eg, proteomics, genomics) research becomes a harrowing task. Funds are now becoming available for state-of-the-art equipment, thus decreasing the earlier large disparity in support facilities between the top research institutes in India and the US/Europe. India is becoming an increasingly viable location to conduct biological research for new biotech companies like Merck who is in the process of expanding research partnerships among Indian companies. However, as new facilities and technologies come up scientists and technicians should receive specialised training. Funds should be provided to encourage interdisciplinary collaboration and sharing of expensive technologies. "There is no point building individual capabilities in design, basic sciences and bioinformatics," says Dr K Narayanasamy, Vice President and Head of The Centre for Genomic Application, the first ever public-private partnership in the field of life sciences in India. According to him, basic scientists should pose the scientific questions, and technologists should design ways to address them and finally the clinics should benefit from the translation of this research work. There is no reason why individual capabilities should be built and then be under utilised. Instead centralised core share facility(ies) could provide the infrastructure needed for the researcher to execute his ideas and thereby saving him/her the mammoth task of maintaining, training and other administrative obligations. He mentions, "Science is philosophical whereas society is practical". He adds, "So far very small benefits of research has translated to perceptible benefits to the society and with all the unmet medical and agricultural needs the expectations of the society are quite large".

Notwithstanding the challenges ahead, the future of Indian science looks promising for idea-based biological research. With boundless scientific opportunity and an increasingly competitive workforce India stands at the brink of emerging as a dominant power in the world of science in the years to come.

Acknowledgements

The author would like to acknowledge the useful inputs given through personal communication by the various scientists. She can be contacted at swatisubodh@tcgaresearch.org