"Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB) has embarked upon developing an inactivated virus vaccine for the dreaded novel coronavirus. If we grow a large amount of virus and we can inactivate it, that will be material for candidate vaccine to be injected. Now the virus will not be active but the human body will recognise the proteins of the virus and start making antibodies against it. The important technological challenge is culturing the virus outside of the human host. As the novel coronavirus has evolved to life on human cells, especially in cells with active ACE2 receptors, locating the right source of the cell line to culture the virus outside of the human body is key to this technology. CCMB is using the epithelial cell line from African green monkey grown in Petri dish to artificially culture and harvest the deadly virus. A few more options of cell lines will be explored to find the right one on which the novel coronavirus can infect, grow and multiply.”

- Dr Rakesh Mishra, Director, CCMB, Hyderabad