How does Novartis contribute to this partnership?

Mr Abela: Novartis contributes to this partnership through its expertise in the discovery, characterization, development and worldwide commercialization of compounds derived from both synthetic and natural product sources. Novartis also provides internship scholarships for BIOTEC scientists and lab courses and seminars by Novartis experts at BIOTEC.

How does BIOTEC contribute to this partnership?

Dr Kirtikara: BIOTEC's expertise is in the knowledge of microorganisms, ranging from collection, identification, preservation to culturing conditions, and in the isolation and elucidation of pure natural compounds from such microorganisms, but with limited biological activities. For this current phase, which started recently, we will investigate anti-parasitic activities of microorganisms and develop a method to enhance compound production in microbial strains.

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