Govt Scouts For Consultants To Set Up New Bio-Safety Level Three Containment Facility At NCCS, Pune

New Delhi, 17 Oct 2018: The country’s healthcare research infrastructure would receive a new fillip with the establishment of a bio-safety level three (BSL-3) containment facility at Pune-based National Centre for Cell Science (NCCS), a national research centre that focuses on cancer, metabolic and infectious diseases and regenerative medicine. The autonomous institute under the Department of Biotechnology (DBT) is scouting for a project consultant to set up its first BSL-3 lab and the bidding process is on, it is learnt.

The state-of-the-art facility would be crucial for conducting experiments with dangerous pathogens such as mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb), novel influenza A re-assortant viruses, chikungunya and other recombinant microbes generated in the lab for identifying virulence factors. 

“The proposed lab will be our first BSL-3 facility. The work is expected to commence as soon as we pick the successful bidder. The project will enhance academic interactions between various institutes in the country to help researchers take advantage of each other’s expertise in developing animal model for tackling human diseases,” NCCS administrative officer VS Shinde told Pharmabiz. 

The move is part of the Central government’s initiative to set up a network of virology laboratories across the country at strategic locations. The ICMR network and other research institutes supported by the government have already established several BSL-2 and BSL-3 laboratories to deal with pathogenic agents of public health importance. 

“Since we have access to patient samples from hospitals, we plan to sort HIV-infected cells also from patients as they may have other known or unknown co-infections including mycobacteria (Mtb), which cause serious infections including tuberculosis. Our researchers also plan to culture Mtb and perform infection studies in animals. As of now, we have only BSL2 facilities and the proposed BSL3 laboratory is necessary to fulfil these scientific objectives,” a senior scientist at the facility pointed out. 

BSL-3 facilities are used to work on agents that may cause serious or potentially lethal diseases upon exposure by inhalation route. These laboratories have special engineering and design features and are built according to the guidelines provided by World Health Organisation, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in the US and National Institute of Health. The personnel have to wear protective equipment and there is a requirement of controlled access, uni-directional airflow, negative pressure and bio-safety cabinets, and work is supervised by specially trained scientists who are experienced in working with these agents. Pharmabiz