New Delhi, Oct 6 (UNI) Oslo based international organisation the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) has recognized the Translational Health Science And Technology Institute (THSTI), an autonomous institute of the Department of Biotechnology as one of the global network of laboratories for centralized assessment of COVID 19 vaccines.

The CEPI network will initially involve six labs, one each in Canada, Britain, Italy, the Netherlands, Bangladesh and India and this global network of laboratories will use the same reagents and follow a common set of protocols to measure the immune response of multiple vaccine candidates under development and trial.

This will greatly harmonize the vaccine trial process and allow different vaccine candidates to be compared and speed up the selection of the most effective candidate.

The Ind-CEPI mission for establishment of Biosafety level 3 (BSL-3) facility is a translational laboratory for platform technologies and a Bioassay laboratory for development of assays to measure clinical immunogenicity. The mandate of the bioassay laboratory at THSTI is to provide validated assays for vaccine development on par with global standards.

The Department of Biotechnology under the Ministry of Science and Technology has been implementing the IndCEPI mission ‘India Centric Epidemic Preparedness through Rapid Vaccine Development: Supporting Indian Vaccine Development’.

The objectives of this mission are aligned with the Global Initiative of Coalition of Epidemic Preparedness for Innovation (CEPI ) and aims to strengthen the development of vaccines and associated competencies/technologies for the diseases of epidemic potential in India.

“We are very pleased that the bioassay laboratory at Translational Health Science and Technology Institute, an autonomous institute of Department of Biotechnology, has been identified by CEPI for centralised immunoassay analysis for COVID 19 vaccines under development globally”, The Department of Biotechnology Secretary Dr Renu Swarup said.

It is well-positioned to run comparability studies with other laboratories internationally and will form an important part of the global network. This is another excellent example of Ind CEPI and CEPI Partnership, she added.

The Department of Biotechnology is supporting efforts for COVID 19 vaccine development and testing. More than 30 vaccines are at different stages of development with three in Human trials and nearly four in advanced stages of Preclinical