NATIONAL JALMA INSTITUTE FOR LEPROSY AND OTHER

AGRA - 282001

(Established in 1976)

Publications

Situated at Agra in Uttar Pradesh, the National JALMA Institute for Leprosy and Other Mycobacterial Diseases (NJILOMD) conducts research on leprosy, tuberculosis, HIV.

The following are the thrust areas of NJILOMD

Leprosy research

• Early diagnosis
• Improving and monitoring treatment
• Prevention and correction of deformities
• Understanding the transmission of disease
• Field studies and Operational research.
• Mechanisms of pathogenesis: interphase with other diseases (filariasis), social health and other problems

  Tuberculosis

• Early diagnosis and development of tests
• Drug sensitivity testing and designing and testing tests for raid screening of sensitivity profile
• Experimental chemotherapy and immunotherapy
• Operational research including disease prevalence and drug resistance surveys in several districts of the State
• Molecular epidemiology in the field settings
• Mechanism of pathogenesis and vaccine studies
• Monitoring the effect of treatment using RNTCP protocols on disease dynamics in the community
• Participation in multicentric studies on the early diagnosis and therapy of tuberculosis
• Selected studies on HIV-AIDS

• Participating centre in WHO multicentric studies on Uniform MDT for all types of leprosy patients.
• It is also the surveillance centre undertaking molecular detection of drug resistance in leprosy in coordination with SEARO, WHO.
• Its studies on the use of immunomodulator Mw as an adjunct to chemotherapy in CAT I and CAT II pulmonary tuberculosis approved by the FDA, USA.

• NJILOMD undertakes various training programmes as mentioned below –
  • One week long training programme on leprosy for District leprosy officers, Medical Officers.
  • Training of medical graduates of local SN Medical College as per the curriculum.
  • DBT multi-centric collaborative projects & trainings to various categories of personnel on molecular techniques (average 12-20 per year) to all categories of technical and scientific staff for over two decades.
  • Teaching research & training support for M.Sc. in Life Sciences (Microbiology, Biochemistry and Biotechnology) to Bhim Rao Ambedkar University, Agra since 1998.
  • Short term trainings, specialized trainings and capacity building trainings were imparted to more than 1500 aspirants of various other colleges/universities/Institutions etc.
  • EQA, Drug Resistance Surveillance (DRS) training to Medical and paramedical staff of 35 districts of Bundelkhand and Western UP since 2007.
• Till March 2009, 1175 project dissertation theses, 213 MD theses, more than 35 PhD theses have been completed, with entire or part of the work performed at NJILOMD, and submitted at various educational Institutes/Universities.
• Having been recognized as a National Reference Laboratory (NRL) for RNTCP activities of Central TB Division of Government of India NJILOMD is providing training in Laboratory diagnosis especially molecular techniques for diagnosis and drug resistance studies on tuberculosis since 2008.

NJILOMD has entered into MOUs with a number of Universities for registering PhD students and for M.Sc dissertation projects –

PhD students

• Bhim Rao Ambedkar University, Agra
• Jiwaji University, Gwalior
• Panjab University, Chandigarh
• Rani Durgavati Vishwavidyalaya, Jabalpur

M.Sc dissertation

• Jiwaji University, Gwalior,
• Rani Durgavati Vishwavidyalaya, Jabalpur

  Students from Bhim Rao University, Agra, and other regional and national Universities are also considered for M.Sc project dissertation.

The major achievements of NJILOMD include:

• Established state of art laboratories e.g. Micro-array lab, proteinomics including MALDI-TOF, BSL-3 laboratories for microbiology and animal experiments with aerosol facility for MTB infection in guinea pigs.
• Established a field centre i.e. Model Rural Health Research Unit at Ghatampur (MRHRU) and a satellite centre at Banda, the main focus of which is to bring technology to the people.
• Examination of over 30,000 patients of leprosy annually in the OPD of it hospital and providing care and free treatment in the hospital and field for leprosy, TB, Filariasis etc..
• Serves as a National Reference Laboratory (NRL) for tuberculosis and repository centre for mycobacterial strains.
• Established animal house facility as part of the initiative for detecting multidrug resistance in leprosy using conventional mouse foot pad methods as well as molecular methods for surveillance of multi drug resistance in leprosy.
• Serves as a surveillance centre for AIDS control and has a VCTC clinic. Besides testing of foreign nationals it also undertakes free HIV testing and counseling of referred and voluntary patients of the society.
• Evaluated and demonstrated the immunoprophylactic effect of immunomodulator Mw on immuno-prophylaxsis of both TB and leprosy.
• Designed several new treatment regimens for leprosy.
  • WHO has adopted modified PB regimen as uniform treatment regimen for all types of leprosy cases.
  • Established the safety and usefulness of addition of immunotherapy (Mw and BCG to MDT) and is now available in the market for use as Immunovac.
• Identified antigenic targets and developed serological tests for leprosy.
• Developed new surgical procedures for correction of deformities i.e. JALMA flap for restoration of volume of first web space in muscular atrophy associated with ulnar paralysis in leprosy.
• Designed the partial micro array chip for leprosy (metabolic pathways and virulence) and TB (efflux pumps and gene associated quinolones resistance).
• Developed new methods for early diagnosis of leprosy using amplification of RLEP, 16S gene region and established it in slit skin smears, biopsy specimens and also in tissue sections using in situ PCR.
• Developed in house PCR RFLP based method to differentiate mycobacterial isolates (M tuberculosis, M avium, M fortuitum and other pathogens).
• Developed molecular typing methods for studying the strain variations in M leprae for identification of sources and mode of transmission.
• Established the presence of live bacilli in the environment (soil and water samples) by molecular methods.
• Established a network of Institutes/ centres working in leprosy for detection of multidrug resistance in leprosy using mice model as well as molecular methods.
• Established a National repository for mycobacteria, networking 38 Institutes and Medical Colleges, and supplying various strains to scientists.
• Co-ordinated multicentric studies on molecular methods (PCR based) for diagnosis of tuberculosis.
• System developed for molecular diagnosis of Kala Azar.
• Undertaking Government of India sponsored and UP Government funded Drug resistance surveys (DRS) in 35 districts of Bundelkhand and Western UP region (in collaboration with STDC Agra and UP government).
• Part of DBT sponsored multicentric studies of use of immunomodulator Mw as an adjunct to chemotherapy in Cat I Na Cat II tuberculosis.
• Has been training a large number of undergraduate, post graduate and doctoral medical and biomedical students.