Ventura has been dedicated to rigorous and groundbreaking science. The company's emphasis is on strong basic research that has been instrumental to its success and growth. The company also explicitly fosters individual creativity and initiative among its researchers, encouraging scientists to pursue projects of interest in addition to working toward the company's goals.

Drug discovery involves systematically identifying which proteins are contributing to problems in the body — either because they are absent, defective or excessive — and then identifying and engineering a protein or related molecule to correct the problem. Recombinant DNA technology, the task of cutting DNA from one organism and putting it into a new organism that reproduces to make proteins of potential value, is the technology at the foundation of biotechnology.

Our Bioinformatics department includes professionals who possess an in-depth understanding of molecular biology and are skilled in computational methods for mining genomic data and is able to swiftly process large amounts of sequence and expression data from the Human Genome Project.

Immunology is increasingly becoming an important focus for our researchers. This area holds great promise, as the range of diseases involving the immune and inflammatory cells is immense. Many of the patients suffering from immunological diseases need to take medicine their entire life, which means there is a pressing need for safer and more effective therapies.

The experience, diversity and dedication of our Research organization assure that we will continue to play a significant role in discovering new innovations helpful to the society.

In-House R & D Activities

I. Clinical genomics

Currently the use of DNA, mRNA or protein based biological markers to predict and diagnose human disease are providing remarkable inputs to clinical medicine, potentially altering the way disease is understood, diagnosed and treated.

By screening relevant genes in disease pathways, the influence of genes on the cause of disease is established and the candidate genes will be further validated. For this purpose, a variety of diseased tissues will be used to identify defective genes. The basic approach is population based association studies supplemented by familial studies. The local availability of adequate clinical material from diverse patient populations offers an exceptional opportunity for not only to identity drug targets but also to establish diagnostic markers that are specific to a disease. The polymorphism in a given gene at the population level within and across ethnic groups facilitate identification of genes that might confer susceptibility or resistance to disease. The focus of R & D is to identify gene and proteins from cells and tissues that are dysfunctional in human disease.

Our objective is to build up database with clinical samples from patients affected by specific diseases such as asthma, cardiovascular disease, diabetes etc., to identify candidate genes for diagnostic and drug targets.

II. Molecular Diagnostics

The presence of vast patient population with diverse diseases provides an enormous clinical research opportunity. We propose to collaborate with national and international clinical research organizations on contractual research basis to develop and introduce diagnostic tests.

Our objectives are as follows:

1. Building data base of DNA and clinical information from patients.

2. Generate information on causes of disease by way of identifying gene patterns associated with disease susceptibility and drug resistance.

We believe that with the availability of large number of clinical samples the discovery of meaningful biomarkers for drug development as well as for diagnostics of disease will be forthcoming and productive enterprise.

Towards the above objectives, we are establishing biomedical repository to hold samples with medical and genetic information for population based studies with emphasis on multigenerational families that will help in the identification of biomarkers for disease prediction as well as to locate novel molecular targets and pathways for therapeutic intervention and to discover clinical indicators for use in drug development.

The following inputs will be offered for collaborating R & D on revenue sharing basis or for fee:

1. Supply of cells and tissues

2. Supply of DNA modules

3. Supply of total mRNA from disease samples

4. Supply of full length cDNAs

III. AGRICULTURAL BIOTECHNOLOGY

The process of developing crop varieties is complex and takes time. Future progress of crop improvement depends largely on the adaption of genomic technologies. The tremendous progress in mapping agronomically useful genes over the past 2 decades offers an opportunity to apply directly the molecular genetic tools in plant breeding. Diversity of new traits that can be transferred within and between species are increasing dramatically as new genomic guided strategies are deployed.

We propose to have strategic alliances with seed companies to offer agronomically useful genes that can be introduced into the germplasm that commercial breeders use to produce new lines. This frees breeders from having to rely on expensive, time consuming hit-or-miss field tests on hundreds of experimental lines as they try to combine several other valuable traits such as adaptability and yield.

The improvement of any crop species is facilitated by introducing novel genes for agronomic traits such as yield as well as traits such as disease or pest resistance and abiotic stress tolerance. We offer the following services for identification, isolation and cloning of the following:

1. Genes controlling disease resistance.

2. Genes involved in abiotic stress.

3. Genes involved in flowering.

4. Specific DNA tools for identifying generically modified plants.