CCMB gets new unit for animal-free drug trials

HYDERABAD: Hyderabad is on its way to becoming one of the leading centres for alternative models to animal-testing. A first of its kind ‘Centre for Predictive Human Model Systems’ was established in the city-based Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB) on Thursday.

The centre has been established in collaboration with the Atal Innovation Centre-CCMB (AIC-CCMB) and Humane Society International/India.

CCMB Director Dr RK Mishra said that the center would exclusively focus on replacing the usage of animals in the field of drug discovery and drug testing, and instead provide alternative models for it.
However, there are no policies or guidelines in place for this as of now. This is where the centre in CCMB will come into picture - to work in tandem with various stakeholders like pharmaceutical companies, Drug Controller General of India and Indian Council of Medical Research, in order to frame policies to facilitate alternative technologies for animal testing.  

“The centre would also work towards developing a scientific and policy think-tank which will represent the growing body on advanced, non-animal science, apart from other initiatives like publishing open-access publications and conducting conferences on the topic,” said Dr Madhusudhan Rao, CEO of the AIC-CCMB. “Even at the CCMB, such alternative models are being used for research. However, there exists no centre that brings all such organisations together, along with the policy makers and the industry itself. That is what we will be doing,” he added.

“Many times new drugs are discarded after they are found non-efficient when tested on animals. However, it is very much possible that, in some of the cases, the drug could have worked on humans. With alternative human models, this error rate can be brought down,” pointed out HSI/India managing director NG Jayasimha.

It was earlier reported in these columns that Hyderabad will also house a ‘Centre for Excellence in human pathway-based biomedicine and risk assessment’ by Indian Council of Medical Research.

Largest-in-world funding for clean-meat research

The Central government’s Department of Biotechnology has decided to allot `4.5 crore for the research on clean-meat in Hyderabad, being taken up by CCMB and the National Research Centre on Meat. The research would be initially focused on developing meat from the cells of Indian sheep.

It was announced last year that the two institutes will be taking up research work on clean-meat, technically known as cell-based meat or cultured meat. With the funding from the Central government, the research work will get a major boost.

The funding is the largest ever by any government in the world for the purpose of developing clean meat.