Faridabad Gets India’s First Ferret Research Facility, for Vaccines R&D

Representative Image

The newly inaugurated Translational Health Science and Technology Institute (THSTI) Ferret Research Facility is a significant milestone for India's biomedical research capabilities. 

Being India’s first ferret research facility, this state-of-the-art research facility is located in Translational Health Science and Technology Institute (THSTI), Faridabad, Haryana, and was inaugurated on February 3, 2025. It's designed to adhere to global biosafety and research standards and will serve as a critical resource for vaccine development, therapeutic testing, and infectious disease research.

This facility will enable critical research on viral pathogens like influenza and SARS-CoV-2, bolstering India's pandemic preparedness.

The facility will enable studies on viral pathogens that require ferrets as an experimental model, such as influenza, SARS-CoV-2, and emerging zoonotic. This positions India at the forefront of global health security efforts and strengthens its ability to respond to future pandemics.

This pioneering facility will serve as a crucial resource for vaccine development, therapeutic testing, and research into emerging infectious diseases, significantly bolstering India's pandemic preparedness strategy and positioning the nation at the forefront of global scientific endeavors.

Ferrets

Ferret Research involves using ferrets as animal models to study various diseases, particularly those affecting the respiratory system. Ferrets are small, domesticated mammals that belong to the weasel family, Mustelidae.

Ferrets are especially valuable in research on influenza and other respiratory viruses because their respiratory system is similar to humans. Ferrets are susceptible to many human pathogens, including SARS-CoV-2 and human influenza viruses.

Ferret research is crucial for advancing our understanding of infectious diseases and developing effective treatments and vaccines. It's a fascinating field that plays a significant role in global health security efforts

It's an important development for India's biomedical research capabilities.

However, Ferret research, like any animal research, raises important ethical considerations regarding animal welfare.

Research involving ferrets is subject to strict ethical standards and regulations to ensure humane treatment. These standards are designed to minimize pain and distress for the animals. Research facilities are often required to have oversight by Institutional Animal Care and Use Committees (IACUCs) or similar bodies to ensure compliance with ethical guidelines and to monitor animal welfare.

Researchers are encouraged to use alternative methods whenever possible and to reduce the number of animals used in experiments. This includes using in vitro (test tube) methods, computer modeling, and other non-animal techniques.

While ferret research is valuable for advancing medical knowledge and developing treatments, it is essential to balance scientific progress with the ethical treatment of animals.

India’s 1st National Repository for Life Science Data Launched at Faridabad

Union Minister Dr Jitendra Singh dedicated to the nation India’s first national repository for life science data–'Indian Biological Data Center’ (IBDC) at Faridabad, Haryana.

IBDC has accumulated over 200 billion bases from 2,08,055 submissions from more than 50 research labs across India.

As per the BIOTECH-PRIDE guidelines of the Government of India, IBDC is mandated to archive all life science data generated from publicly-funded research in India. Biotech-PRIDE (Promotion of Research and Innovation through Data Exchange) Guidelines was released by the Department of Biotechnology (DBT), Ministry of Science and Technology, in July last year. 

IBDC has a data storage capacity of about 4 petabytes and houses the ‘Brahm’ High Performance Computing (HPC) facility. The computational infrastructure at IBDC is also made available for researchers interested in performing computational-intensive analysis. Users can contact the data center by submitting their requests at support@ibdc.rcb.res.i

Dr Jitendra Singh informed that IBDC has started nucleotide data submission services via two data portals viz. the ‘Indian Nucleotide Data Archive (INDA)’ and ‘Indian Nucleotide Data Archive - Controlled Access (INDA-CA)’ and has accumulated over 200 billion bases from 2,08,055 submissions from more than 50 research labs across India.

The national repository also hosts an online ‘Dashboard’ for the genomic surveillance data generated by the INSACOG labs (https://inda.rcb.ac.in/insacog/statisticsinsacog). The online dashboard provides customized data submission, access, data analysis services, and real-time SARS-CoV-2 variant monitoring across India. Data submission and access portals for other data types are under development and would be launched shortly. 

IBDC is committed to the spirit of data sharing as per FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable) principles. 

Interestingly, IBDC is being developed in a modular fashion wherein different sections would typically deal with particular type/s of life science data. 

The computational infrastructure at IBDC is also made available for researchers interested in performing computational intensive analysis. Users can contact the data center by submitting their requests at support@ibdc.rcb.res.in. 

Further, IBDC conducts regular workshops and orientations (https://ibdc.rcb.res.in/news-and-announcement/) to assist users in submitting the data. Video tutorials for data submission to IBDC are also available at the data center website.

The data center team can also be contacted at support@ibdc.rcb.res.in for scheduling of any workshop on data submission/analysing 

Airtel Chosen as Network Solution Partner for Faridabad Smart City Project

Bharti Airtel (“Airtel”), India’s largest integrated telecommunications services provider, today said that it has been chosen as the strategic Network Solution partner by Faridabad Smart City Limited (FSCL) to transform the NCR satellite town of Faridabad into a Smart City.

Faridabad is amongst the 100 cities identified by the Ministry of Urban Development (Government of India) as part of the Smart Cities Mission. Faridabad Smart City Limited (FSCL) objective is to provide core infrastructure, give better quality of life to citizens and apply smart solutions to improve services and infrastructure across Faridabad.

Airtel will work closely with FSCL (Govt. of Haryana) to design and deploy a future ready high capacity network and a range of connectivity solutions to build a digitally enable Faridabad city. Airtel’s solutions will include MPLS, Internet Bandwidth and Network Hardware Equipment. Airtel will also bring to table its vast experience in deploying these solutions for governments and enterprises.

Airtel’s network infrastructure will empower Faridabad Smart City Limited to implement a range of smart solutions and e-governance services. These will include Smart City solutions such as Adaptive Traffic Control system, City wide Surveillance, Traffic Enforcement System, LED Street Lighting, Smart Signage. In future, it will include various other citizen services such as SCADA based monitoring of flow, Automated Online water quality Monitoring.

Ajay Chitkara, Director and CEO, Airtel Business said, “It is a matter of pride for us to have been given this opportunity by the Government of Haryana in their endeavour to build a Digital Faridabad. At Airtel, our mission is to add value to the lives of customers through our world-class network and products. We look forward to working closely with FSCL and contribute towards building a future ready Haryana.”

Airtel Business is India’s leading provider of ICT services with a diverse portfolio of services to enterprises, governments, carriers and small and medium businesses. It serves over 3000 Large and 500,000 Medium and Small enterprises with world-class services. Along with voice, data, video, and conferencing solutions, Airtel also provides network integration, cybersecurity, IoT, cloud, data centers, managed services, enterprise mobility applications and digital media to enterprises in India and across the world.

Airtel is a trusted solution provider for fixed-line voice (PRIs), data and other connectivity solutions like MPLS, VoIP, SIP trunking. Additionally, the Company offers solutions to businesses Audio, Video and Web Conferencing. Cloud portfolio is also an integral part of its office solutions suite. Along with voice, data and video, Airtel’s services also include network integration, data centers, managed services, enterprise mobility applications and digital media.

Bharti Airtel Limited is a leading global telecommunications company with operations in 18 countries across Asia and Africa. Headquartered in New Delhi, India, the company ranks amongst the top 3 mobile service providers globally in terms of subscribers. In India, the company's product offerings include 2G, 3G and 4G wireless services, mobile commerce, fixed line services, high speed home broadband, DTH, enterprise services including national & international long distance services to carriers. In the rest of the geographies, it offers 2G, 3G, 4G wireless services and mobile commerce. Bharti Airtel had over 403 million customers across its operations at the end of June 2019.