Union Health Minister, Dr. Mansukh Mandaviya inaugurated ICMR NARFBR (National Animal Resource Facility for Biomedical Research) at Genome Valley, Hyderabad today in presence of Shri C. Malla Reddy, Minister of Labour and Employment, Telangana.
Speaking on the occasion, Dr. Mandaviya highlighted Government’s push for indigenous research and innovation.
He said “during the COVID pandemic, our Hon’ble Prime Minister emphasized making indigenous vaccines. When the world was suffering from a shortage of vaccines, India took up this challenge and our scientific community proved their mettle by creating those vaccines.
When the import of foreign vaccines would have taken 5-10 years, with the political leadership’s wholehearted support and stakeholders being mobilized, India’s scientific community produced these vaccines in one year.”
The significance of NARFBR can be adjudged from the fact that the study of animals in biomedical research becomes crucial in discovering causes, diagnosis, and treatment of zoonotic agents and diseases.
NARFBR is an apex facility that will provide ethical care and use and welfare of laboratory animals during research. The newly build center will work as a state-of-the-art facility for not just ethical animal studies but spans from basic, and applied to regulatory animal research.
It will help in the capacity building of new researchers and will create processes for pre-clinical testing of new drugs, vaccines, and diagnostics within the country along with quality assurance checks.
Dr. Rajiv Bahl, Director General of ICMR and Secretary of the Department of Health Research, termed the facility to be not just the best in the country but the biggest in the world.
“From the availability of various animals for ethical research to strengthening various processes under one umbrella, NARFBR would be an asset for the country to deal with zoonotic diseases” he added.