Top

EXPERIMENTAL ANIMAL FACILITY

The Animal Facility of NICED consists of two units. The old facility is present at the premises of S.C.PAL-Building. This has undergone phase wise modernization and at present it looks like a new version of old Animal House. The new facility is developed at the JICA-building premises of NICED with modern technological outfits. As a whole, the entire facility is updated to cater the need of Scientific Research of this Institute.

The following species are bred here up till now in order to meet up the desired supply target under controlled programmes amongst our own researchers complying with the scheduled ethical restrictions:

1. Albino Mice (Swiss strain)- Random Breeding.
2. -----Do------ (Balb-C strain)- In Breeding.
3. Black Mice (C57BL/6 strain)- In Breeding.
4. Albino Rats (Ducrey strain)- Random Breeding.
5. Golden Hamsters - Out Breeding.
6. Albino Rabbits (New-Zealand White)- Out Breeding.

Animal experiments are being done observing all Animal Ethics Regulations streamlined by the ‘Institutional Animal Ethics Committee’ (IAEC) concerned under the guidance of the ‘Committee for the Purpose of Control and Supervision of Experiments on Animals’ (CPCSEA), Govt. of India.
 

Top

The Biomedical Informatics Centre (BIC) at the National Institute of Cholera and Enteric Diseases, Kolkata was established in September, 2006. This is the one of the seven centers created by Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), Govt. of India.

Top

Biosafety Level-3 Laboratory (BSL3)

BSL-3 is suitable for work with infectious agents which may cause serious or potentially lethal diseases as a result of exposure even through aerosol. In wake of increasing threat of highly pathogenic viral infections such as Avaian Influenza, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare provided funds in 2006 for setting up a BSL3 laboratory at NICED to cater to the Eastern states of India. BSL3 laboratory was installed and inaugurated at NICED in 2007 in the ID and BG hospital Campus by Director General, ICMR in the presence of Additional Chief Secretary, Govt of West Bengal and other dignitaries from the State Health Department. During the Avian Influenza outbreak in poultry in West Bengal during January-February 2008, all suspected human samples were handled and analyzed by Real time PCR at BSL3 laboratory . Results were provided to the WB State Health Dept. and ICMR HQ within 24h after receiving samples. This facility is under the Division of Virology.
 

Top

NICED along with International Vaccine institute, Seoul, Korea initiated a project titled “Surveillance for typhoid fever and cholera in eastern Kolkata, West Bengal, India” in 2001 to generate accurate epidemiologic, socio-behavioral, and economics data on typhoid fever and cholera in impoverished slum area populations of eastern Kolkata in preparation for field trials of vaccines against these two diseases. It is basically a health care facility-based passive surveillance; nested case-control studies done among urban slum population (60,000) of Kolkata in ward 29 and 30.

It was followed by the typhoid (Vi) vaccination project titled “Randomized controlled evaluation of protection by the Vi polysaccharide vaccine against typhoid fever in eastern Kolkata, West Bengal, India” among 60, 000 urban slum population in 2004 with a coverage of 69%. The study population was followed up for 2 years to estimate the effectiveness of the vaccine. The study ended in 2006. The result was very promising, preliminary analysis shows an over all protective efficacy of 61%.

After the typhoid vaccine trial, NICED -IVI undertook a phase II trial to see the safety and immunogenicty of the bivalent, whole cell killed oral cholera vaccine in Kolkata among healthy volunteers aged 1 year and above up to 40 years. It was proven to safe and immunogenic.

After the typhoid vaccine trial, NICED -IVI undertook a trial on bivalent, whole cell killed oral cholera vaccine titled “A Randomized Controlled Trial of The Bivalent Killed Whole Cell Oral Cholera Vaccine in Eastern Kolkata, West Bengal, India” among 110,000 urban slum populations in ward 29, 30 and 33 of Kolkata Municipal Corporation. The primary objective of the study is to see the protective efficacy of the vaccine against Vibrio Cholerae O1 and O139 among subjects 1 year and above. It was a double dose vaccine with2 weeks gap in between the doses. The coverage was 61% for the two doses. The vaccination ended on 10th September 2006. The study subjects will be followed up for three years.

Along with these trials NICED also under took Socio-behavioral and economic studies on typhoid fever and cholera to estimate the economic costs of cholera and typhoid fever in the community In 2007, NICED-IVI did a trial on the same oral cholera vaccine to compare the immune response of the vaccine after 1st dose and second dose. Preliminary results show significant rise in vibriocidal titre after 1st dose of the vaccine which may pave the way for introducing this vaccine in public health program of India especially in endemic areas to combat cholera epidemics.

NICED has already done a large community based trial to see the efficacy of probiotic in preventing diarrhoeal diseases among the children, in collaboration with Yakult Honsa, Japan. A multi centric diarrhoeal diseases burden study is already on, with collaboration with University of Maryland. It’s a large community based case control study. The study populations are urban slum dwellers in Kolkata.
Another phase II trial is coming up with the same vaccine among the infants as well.

In the coming years NICED is planning to undertake several vaccine trials collaborating with IVI. on live oral typhoid vaccine among children aged 2-17 years to see the safety, immunogenicity which will be followed by large scale community based phase III trial,

NICED is also planning for phase II safety trial of a live oral cholera vaccine in collaboration with Department of Biotechnology and another phase II trial of Peru 15 (live oral cholera vaccine) with International Vaccine Institute. Apart from these, we are preparing a protocol for a mass vaccination project with the oral killed cholera vaccine in endemic areas keeping another set of population as reference population with international Vaccine Institute and a single dose efficacy study of the whole cell killed oral cholera vaccine.
 

Top

The Institute has a central instrumentation facility located in the 3rd floor of S. C. Pal Building. Due to recent expansion, another set up will be coming up soon in the 2nd floor of JICA building. The central facility is equipped with high-speed centrifuges, ultracentrifuges, spectrophotometer, sonicator, and shakers for large bacterial cultures. This facility is being upgraded time to time. Recently, a large number of sophisticated instruments have been procured and these are placed under scientists for proper maintenance and utilization. These include FPLC, HPLC, LC-MS, calorimeters like ITC and DSC, FACS, confocal microscope, electron microscope, real-time PCR and automated DNA sequencer. The instruments are available for use mainly by our scientists and our collaborators.
 

Top

Hematology, Clinical Biochemistry .. More on Clinical Laboratory