Experts discuss preclinical animal models & available alternatives

New Delhi: To Commemorate the World Laboratory Animal Day, CSIR-CDRI, Lucknow organized a one-day symposium on ‘‘Preclinical Animal and Available Alternatives’’ in Collaboration with Laboratory Animal Science Association of India (LASAI).

Director of CSIR-CDRI, Dr Radha Rangarajan, welcomed the guests and participants and shed the light on the purpose of this symposium.

The Guest of Honor of the Symposium, Dr. Sujit Kumar Dutta, Joint Commissioner, Ministry of Animal Husbandry, Dairying and Fisheries and Secretary, CCSEA and AWBI delivered an inaugural speech on Animal’s role in making of different medicine and perform various experiments. In his lecture he said, Animal sacrifices their life for Humanity so we should respect to them and use them ethically and intelligently. He said, we should reduce animal usages on various research as much as we can. There is an urgent need of replacement of Animal Model in laboratories.

Later in the symposium, Dr. Suresh Poosala, Founder, Oncoseek Bio Pvt. Ltd and Acasta Healthcare Pvt, Ltd. delivered a plenary talk on Alternatives and some Animal Modal of Disease in Drugs Discoveries. He said the use of New Approaches, Methodologies, also known as New Alternative Methods or NAMs, to establish Drugs Safety and Effectiveness may be adopted in place of animal testing where appropriate. He said we should pick up right animal in right quantity or if possible use alternative method. He emphasized on 3 R’s of Animal usage alternatives which refers to the Replacement, Reduction and Refinement of Animal in Research and testing. (Replacement: refer to approaches that directly replace or avoid the animal, Reduction: involve the use of lesser number of animals, not do the same test again, Refinement: eliminate the Animal Pain and stress by modification in testing process).

In the first half of #Symposium posters on alternative and novel animal models were presented by the research students.

Later in second half of the symposium, the first session was focused on Alternate to Animal Models and was Chaired by Dr. Naibedya Chattopadhyaya and Dr. Suresh Poosala,

The first lecture of the session was delivered by Dr. Parthasarathy Ramakrishnan CSIR-IITR on Computational Toxicology Platform toward replacing animal testing. Dr. Chetana Sachidanandan CSIR-IGIB, New Delhi presented Zebra fish as a model for human disease. Dr. Aamir Nazir, CSIR-CDRI Lucknow presented C. elegans as alternative to animal model for disease research. Vijeta Jaiswal from Cellink Bioprinting, Bangaluru presented a new concept of 3D Bio printing as an alternative to Animal Testing.

Second session started with Regulatory Guidelines in Animal Research chairs by Dr. Sujit Kumar Dutta and Dr. Sharad Sharma. Dr. Vivek Tyagi, Senior Consultant, CCSEA, New Delhi give speech on CCSEA- Aim Rules, function and Recent Notifications of CCSEA for nomination and establishments. Dr. UD Gupta, Ex- Director in Charge, ICMR-NJILOMD, Agra present report on Biosafety practices and infectious Diseases.

Dr. Satish Panchal, Sun Pharma Advanced Research company Ltd (SPARC) tell us the Regulatory requirement of using dogs in non- clinical research. Dr. Neeraj Khatri, CSIR- IMTech, Chandigarh give some guideline on Approval and Inspection of Animal Facilitates in India as per CCSEA guidelines.

Session Concluded with remarks by Dr. SK Rath, Chairman Organizing Committee and the session end with Vote of thanks by Dr. Rajdeep Guha, Secretary, Organization committee.