Agartala, Feb 05, 2023, Prasenjit Chakraborty/ TT
Agartala, Feb 05: The Drug Metabolomics Laboratory which has been set up in Tripura University will start its full-fledged functions with newly-installed equipment.
According to an official, the laboratory is equipped with state-of-the-art facilities like UPLC-QToF HRMS/MS instruments which are useful in metabolomics assays to be conducted on a wide array of samples including plasma, blood spots, tissue, urine, cerebral spinal fluid, and cell culture.
With modern tech support, the lab can measure the presence or absence of specific metabolites of Narcotics and other drugs of abuse in blood and urine samples of patients and other subjects even hours after their consumption which is normally very difficult to detect after few hours of consumption.
Dr. Pratap Chandra Acharya, Assistant professor and head-in-charge of Department of Pharmacy, who implemented the project, said the lab has all the necessary sophisticated equipment such as semi-preparative HPLC with fraction collector, ultra-low temperature freezer, high volume cold storage cabinets, high speed refrigerated centrifuge, ultra-pure water purifier, analytical balance, lyophilizer, vacuum concentrator, probe and bath sonicator, laminar clean bench, parallel reaction station and extractor, particle size analyser and Real Time-PCR.
The dedicated Drug Metabolomics Laboratory has been set up for the first time in any academic institute in the entire country, Dr. Acharya told Tripura Times.
The lab was established in the financial year 2021-22 by the help of major research grant received from the Department of Biotechnology, Government of India under the Research Resources Services Facility and Platforms- Scientific Infrastructure Access for Harnessing Academia University Research Joint Collaboration (DBT-RRSFP-SAHAJ) programme to boost research in the field of medicine, pharmaceuticals, forensic science and biological sciences.
Dr. Acharya said, a three-day training programme on drug metabolomics would commence at Tripura University from Monday.