New Delhi, Feb. 22: India is about to launch its biggest effort to screen microbes in the search for new drugs under a project involving nine public laboratories, a private company and robotic technology.

Scientists hope to collect 7,000 bacterial species each month and, after initial screening, pass them to industrial partner Nicholas Piramal, which will evaluate their potential as sources of new drugs.

The bacteria will be picked up from the hot springs of Himachal Pradesh, forests in the Northeast, the guts of insects in the Western Ghats and the seabed, among other sites across India.

The microbial bioprospecting project announced by science and technology minister Kapil Sibal today will pitch India into an ongoing, but undeclared, worldwide race to discover biologically active molecules from bacteria.

The biotechnology department has pledged Rs 18 crore and Nicholas Piramal Rs 7 crore for the three-year project.

“We’re going to do this on a scale we’ve not attempted before,” said Maharaj Kishan Bhan, the biotechnology secretary.

Although several research centres in India had been screening bacteria for useful molecules, most efforts involved a few hundred microbes.

Bacteria have already proven themselves as a source of drugs. A new class of antibiotics from bacteria is already in use and botox is an example of a therapeutic molecule, said Hemant Purohit, the project co-ordinator.

“We’re specifically looking for novel antibiotics and new drugs against cancer, diabetes and inflammation,” said Arun Balakrishnan, a scientist with Nicholas Piramal.

The company will deploy a robotic technique of screening up to 20,000 molecules of bacterial origin every week.

Each participating institution will search for microbes from its own region or spe- ciality.

The National Institute of Oceanography will collect bacteria from the sea, the Institute of Life Sciences, Bhubaneswar, will concentrate on bacteria from Orissa, Bengal and Bihar, and the Institute of Bioresources and Sustainable Development, Imphal, will concentrate on bacteria from the Northeast.

Nicholas Piramal has already established its own repository of 50,000 microbes from which it has identified 14 novel molecules. Some of these are now being tested against cancer, diabetes and inflammation in animal and human trials, said Swati Piramal, the director of Nicholas Piramal.

Under an agreement signed today, credit as well as benefits that emerge from the novel molecules will be shared by the investigating laboratory and the company.

The National Centre for Cell Science, Pune, will set up a microbial bank holding 200,000 bacterial species.