India claims Corona vaccine

The University of Hyderabad has claimed the first coronavirus vaccine from India as they released their findings for peer review and getting ready for a clinical trial.

This is for the first time such studies have emanated fromany Indian University

A faculty member of the University of Hyderabad (UoH) hasclaimed to have designed what can be a potential vaccine against thecoronavirus, called T-cell epitomes. To be studied in vitro for conclusiveevidence, the research has been shared with the scientific community, theuniversity has stated in a press release.

Seema Mishra of the Department of Biochemistry, School ofLife Sciences, has created small coronavirus peptides or molecules used bycells to trigger an immune response to destroy infected cells, the universityhas stated further.

The university claims these potential vaccines are designed to not destroy human cells or proteins while acting as an immune response against the virus. However, these results have to be investigated experimentally in order to provide conclusive evidence.

These are the first such studies on the nCoV vaccine designfrom India exploring the whole coronaviral proteome across structural and non-structuralproteins that make up the virus, claims the university.

"Right now, the best defence to prevent further nCoVinfections is social distancing. Vaccination will take some time due to theneed for further work on these candidate epitopes. We are hopeful that ourcomputational findings will provide a cost and time-effective framework forrapid experimental trials towards an effective nCoV vaccine," the universitysaid the statement.

Meanwhile, IIT Guwahati is also working to develop a vaccinefor the coronavirus pandemic as well as rapid detection and portable diagnostickits for various viruses and microorganisms. The institute informed that the researchers there are exploringpossibilities to "clone the immunogenic proteins of SARS-CoV-2 to be used asdiagnostics and possible vaccine candidates".