The COVID-19 pandemic has shown that zoonotic diseases can bring the world to a standstill as these infectious diseases can be transmitted from animals to humans and they are also the cause of major modern diseases. Hence, it has become imperative to keep a watch on the ‘zoonotic reservoir’ of what the future pandemic is likely to be and where it could be coming from.
Towards this objective, the National Institute of Animal Biotechnology (NIAB), under the Department of Biotechnology (DBT) here and the Bengaluru-based Tata Institute of Genetics and Society (TIGS) have entered into a collaboration to focus scientific research on infectious diseases diagnostics, surveillance and management in animals.
The memorandum of understanding between both research institutes signed a few days ago is concentrated on animal diseases of viral like JEV (Japanese Encephalitis) and bacterial origins such as Brucellosis and Leptospirosis origins.
TIGS director Rakesh Mishra, also the former director of CSIR-Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB) explained that his institute’s role in the collaborative work will be to carry out the molecular biology aspects like the mRNA-based platforms, and molecular surveillance technologies.
The NIAB will be involved in pathogen culture and testing within the institute equipped with the most advanced BSL3 and BSL2 facilities. The scientists here will be working on the livestock, connecting with the veterinary network on ground, and also liaison with local governments in the urban and rural areas.
“These collaborations are important for ‘One Health’ concept and will bring societal benefits, particularly in the domain of important zoonotic diseases, said NIAB director G.Taru Sharma.
“Zoonotic surveillance is quite complex unlike monitoring the human diseases through the waste water sampling because of the accessibility. Even among human beings, we have been checking only for polio till recently,” pointed out Dr.Mishra. Both institutes are planning to carry out animal model experiments and field trials with the help of industry partners.
There is also a plan to take up pathogen surveillance and diagnostics, especially in emerging areas of CRISPR (Clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats), a genome editing technology and nucleic acids diagnostics for zoonotic diseases, tracking the emergence of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) and developing vaccines. Scientists are also expected to work on vector and tick-borne diseases in the surveillance context.
