Genotypic Technology finds phyto-remedy for type II diabetes

Genotypic Technology has adopted Next Generation Screening (NGS) to explore the potential of phyto-remedies for type II diabetes mellitus (DM).

The company has carried out a year-long research on Costus pictus D Don, looking at its anti-adiabtic properties, with the firm claiming its data is of "immense significance" for researchers, reports Pharma Biz.

Costus pictus D Don is recognised as an insulin plant in southern India, with leaves that are believed to increase insulin pools in blood plasma, whereas NGS is regarded as an effective tool for spotting molecular signatures in the transcriptome linked to plant tissues' physiological functions.

Genotypic Technology began its research in December 2011. The work was led by Dr Annadurai Ramasamy, research director, while Vasanthan Jayakumar, Dr Raja C Mugasimangalam, Mohan AVSK Katta, Sanchita Anand, Sreeja Gopinathan and Santosh Prasad Sarma are among the other people who helped in the investigation.

The main aim of the research was to identify potential diabetic drug targets in an effort to devise new treatments for diabetes.

Speaking to the news provider, Dr Sudha Rao, co-founder and chief operating officer of Genotypic Technology, said: "We sequenced the leaf transcriptome of C pictus using Illumina reversible dye terminator sequencing technology and used combination of bioinformatics tools to recognise transcripts related to anti-diabetic properties of C pictus."

Dr Rao added that no other company has carried out any work to study Costus pictus D.

"This is the first-ever effort to understand the genetic complexity of Costus pictus to unravel the anti-diabetic molecules. Genotypic has a unique pool of specialized human resources to analyze at the genomic level in addition to the material and equipment resources.

"This makes Genotypic a specialist in this domain. Presently team strength is 85 and is on expansion mode too," he explained.

Professor Ulf Eriksson of the Department of Medical Biochemistry and Biophysics at Karolinska Institute recently led a project to investigate treatments for type 2 diabetes.

Scientists from Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research and the Australian biopharmaceutical company CSL Limited also took part in the work.

Posted by Ben Evans