Students of Narsee Monjee Institute of Management Studies Enlisted to Find Cures for Neglected Diseases

The Drugs for Neglected Diseases initiative (DNDi) have launched a collaborative project with 5 universities from the UK, US, and India to help with the research on an attenuating neglected disease. The project was named  “the Open Synthesis Network (OSN)” 

The 'Open Synthesis Network' (OSN) 

The five universities that have collaborated for this project are: the Shobhaben Pratapbhai Patel School of Pharmacy & Technology Management at Narsee Monjee Institute of Management Studies (NMIMS) in Mumbai and the Indian Institute of Chemical Technology (IICT) in Hyderabad from India, Imperial College in London from the UK, the Northeastern University in Boston and Pace University in New York from the US. 

The DNDi's press release stated that the project named OSN include around 25 undergraduate and masters' students from a chemistry background and the students are expected to work on bettering chemical compounds for the desolate disease, visceral leishmaniasis. According to the World Health Organization, this disease is likely a fatal disease which is identified by irregular bouts of flu, fever, substantial weight loss, swelling of the liver and the spleen along with anemia. The release also stated that all the work generated by the OSN will be published in a public domain and will remain free of 'intellectual property' (IP). This is first ever example of an Open Source Pharma approach being used to fight kinetoplastid diseases like Visceral Leishmaniasis.