public engagement

Vaccine development against coronavirus - COVID19

More than 200 vaccines are currently being developed against COVID19 virus, across the globe. What is the structure of coronavirus and what strategies are used for developing vaccines is discussed in a live interview with Doordarshan Girnar.

COVID19’s genetic material- RNA- is made up of 30,000 letters which codes for 29 proteins. These proteins help the virus to attach to the cells in the respiratory tract, hijack the cellular machinary and use it to survive, thrive and multiply in the patient’s body.

To protect people from the virus, it is essential to develop immunity against it. Vaccines are the “gold standard” approach to develop immunity against a virus before a person is infected with it.

To develop a vaccine however, knowledge of virus structure, its proteins and their functions are critical.

To understand the virus structure, its genome and different approaches to develop a vaccine against covid19, our Head of Advanced Genomic Technologies Division- Dr. Harsh Sheth and Mr. Pankaj Patel (Chairman of Cadilla Healthcare Pharma), gave a live interview with the anchor Mr. Utsav Parmar (IIS) on Doordarshan Girnar. You can watch the entire interview here in Gujarati.