IIT Guwahati Pioneers Groundbreaking Vaccine for Swine Fever

The Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati has achieved a significant milestone by successfully transferring a groundbreaking vaccine technology to BioMed Pvt. Ltd., a renowned manufacturer specializing in high-quality vaccines. This innovative technology involves the development of a recombinant vector vaccine designed specifically to combat the classical swine fever virus in pigs and wild boars, addressing a critical gap in India's vaccine repertoire.

This groundbreaking vaccine, the first of its kind in India, leverages a reverse genetic platform pioneered and refined at IIT Guwahati. Swine fever, a highly contagious disease affecting pigs, poses a substantial threat due to its high mortality rate, although it is not transmissible to humans. In India, outbreaks of this disease have been frequently observed in northeastern states, as well as in Bihar, Kerala, Punjab, Haryana, and Gujarat, among others.

The development of this vaccine began in 2018-2019 through collaborative efforts between researchers from the Department of Biosciences and Bioengineering at IIT Guwahati and Assam Agricultural University in Guwahati. Their research findings have been published in prestigious journals such as Process Biochemistry and Archives of Virology.

Given the significant threat posed by swine fever to India's pig industry and the absence of an available vaccine, the successful transfer of vaccine technology to BioMed Pvt. Ltd., a leader in the veterinary vaccine sector, marks a momentous achievement.

Reverse genetics emerges as a powerful method and tool for vaccine development targeting both animal and human diseases. The technology has been widely employed in the development of vaccines against influenza and holds immense promise for combating various infectious diseases in the future.