Microbes in the jungles of Western Ghats or in the hot springs of Puttur may provide an answer to the global search of finding out new drug molecules from bacteria.

On Friday, India launched its maiden large scale initiative, costing Rs 25 crore, in order to screen millions of microbes to find out the potential leads, which will lead to new drugs.

Researchers from nine scientific institutions and leading pharma company Nicholas Piramal will utilise the money to check out microbes from mountain, hot springs, river sediments, deep sea vents, mangrove forest and contaminated industrial sites.

The target is to shift through 7,000 microbial isolates every month and generate a repository of two lakh microbes after five years at the National Centre for Cell Sciences in Pune.

The scientists will do the initial screening and only the promising leads will be passed on to the pharma company for further developmental. DBT contributes Rs 17.98 crore whereas Nicholas Piramal’s contribution is Rs 6.88 crore.

Some of the microbes will generate leads to develop anti-cancer, anti-diabetic, anti-infective and anti-inflammation properties, which then could be explored jointly for creating new drugs, said Union Science Minister Kapil Sinbal after launching the five year initiative on Friday.

“The second part of the project involving more money will be on actual drug development,” a DBT official said, adding that for the first time DBT was trying such large scale microbial.