GUWAHATI: Regional Medical Research Centre for NE Region (ICMR-RMRC) situated at Lahowal in Dibrugarh has been successful in isolating the SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) virus in their BSL-3 Lab.
RMRC, Dibrugarh is only the 3rd government Lab in the country after NIV (ICMR Lab), Pune and CCMB (CSIR lab), Hyderabad and 4th lab overall after Bharat Biotech (Pvt Biotechnology lab at Hyderabad), to isolate the virus in tissue culture.
The scientists of RMRC, Dibrugarh, Dr Borkakoty and his team (Dr Jakharia), has isolated the COVID-19 virus (SARS-CoV-2) in VERO-CCL81 cell line in the BSL-3 level lab available at their institute.
They used an immortal cell line VERO-CCL81 (derived from Kidney epithelial cell lines from green African monkey) which expresses the important ACE2 receptor needed by SARS-CoV-2 for cellular entry.
In layman’s term the significance of the COVID-19 virus isolation by the team of scientists from RMRC, Dibrugarh, is that live and viable SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19 virus) can now be produced in the laboratory in abundance and as and when required.
This is important for development of inactivated COVID-19 vaccine where virus grown in laboratory are inactivated by heat or chemical and purified for use as vaccines after pre-clinical and clinical trials.
Further apart from vaccine development, the potential uses of cultures of SARS-CoV-2 includes drug screening for potential drugs or drug candidates against the virus, testing effectiveness of disinfectants, use in development of therapeutic antibodies etc.
The ICMR-RMRC, Lahowal, has been supporting the state of Assam and other NE states in the fight against COVID-19. Till now the centre has provided almost 50,000 diagnostic test reports of COVID-19 for the people of this region. The research centre is engaged in various biomedical research work including, on the new COVID-19 pandemic.
