Hunt For Magic Potion

Seven Indian firms are among those hunting for a vaccine to tame Covid-19. Here is how the projects are progressing

- P.B. Jayakumar And E. Kumar Sharma

Despite the lockdown, Dr Amol D. Raut, CEO at Pune’s Genetic Healing and Director at GeneOmbio Technologies, has not slept for days. That’s also the case with his 50-odd colleagues, mainly scientists. Dr. Raut is using his nearly two decades of experience in infectious diseases, molecular diagnostics and human genome sequencing to study the structure and characteristics of the four-month-old SARS-CoV-2 virus gene. Soon, his team will launch a genetic study to develop diets suitable to Indians that can improve immunity against the disease. Another study with the 70-year-old Kaivalyadham Yoga Research Institute at Lonavala near Pune will map genes of a sample pool in Maharashtra to learn how Yoga can improve immunity against the coronavirus.