In-vivo pharmacology division of Dabur Research Foundation has capability of conduction various non-clinical efficacy studies under wide therapeutic indications such as Oncology, Pain, Inflammation, metabolic disorders, neuroscience etc…

DRF – Pharmacology has 12 Scientists and two technicians

• Our senior scientists are more than 10-15 years of experience in experimental pharmacology.
• Our junior scientists are more than 3-5 years of experience in experimental pharmacology.

Our animal house has the capability to house & maintain following species and strains

• Rat (Wistar, Sprague Dawley)
• Mice (Swiss albino, BALB/c, C57BL6, Athymic Nude, SCID Beige, NOD SCID)
• Rabbit (Zealand white rabbit)
• Hamster (Syrian)
• Guinea Pig (Dunkin-Hartley)

Our test facility is capable of housing…

• 2500 rodents
• 50 Rabbits

Our animals house facility is AAALAC accredited laboratory and follows all the safety & experimental animal care protocols.

We have more than 80 different validated pharmacological animal model under more than 10 different therapeutic indication.

There are dedicated experimental suites for following therapeutic indication

• Pain & Inflammation
• Metabolic Disorders
• Oncology (Athymic Facility)
• Neuroscience

We have successfully established, and our scientists are trained in 22 different routes of administration in rodents We have dedicated suite for surgical procedures and following surgical models were done

• Ovariectomy for estrogenic / Osteoporosis activity
• Castration (Rat & Rabbit)
• Skin excision for wound healing potential
• Uni-Nephrectomy for hypertension
• Corneal wound (Physical & Alkali Burn)
• Chronic Constriction Injury (CII) for neuropathic pain
• Intra Vertebral Damage for Low back pain
• Sub retinal injection
• Pylorus ligation for anti-ulcer activity

Oncology:

Oncology section has dedicated tissue culture facility equipped with CO 2 incubator, Biosafety cabinet, Inverted microscope, Water bath, LN2 container, deep freezer and in- house repository of cell lines & tumor fragments. We have dedicated animal suite at our vivarium to conduct oncology experiments. The oncology suite is further bifurcated in to two namely… Syngeneic facility and Athymic facility.

Syngeneic facility: Immuno competent animals such as BALB/c and C57BL6 will be housed. Dedicated Biosafety cabinet, animal weighing balance, equipment, digital Caliper, consumables etc were installed. Syngeneic tumor models such as CT-26 tumor model, B16F10 tumor model, Metastasis models, Angiogenesis models and non-GLP safety evaluation like acute toxicity and MTD determination.

Athymic Facility: Athymic facility is equipped with biosafety cabinet, individually ventilated cage (IVC), animal weighing balance, air purifier, etc…. Athymic Nude mice and SCID mice will be housed. Subcutaneous xenograft studies, Intravenous leukemia models will be conducted at this facility.

Our common facility is equipped with analytical balance, Centrifuge, micropipette, ELISA reader, homogenizer, incubator, water bath, etc… to conduct various biomarker estimations We have expertise in following to conduct in-vivo cancer models

• Cell expansion
• Injecting human cancer cells with or without Matrigel subcutaneously
• Implantation method of Tumor fragment using trocar
• Oral, Subcutaneous, Intramuscular, intravenous, intratumoral administration of testing agents
• Dissecting out the solid tumor and subject them for histological, immunohistological investigation
• Measuring test item level in plasma and tumor homogenate (PK)
• Estimation of various biomarkers in serum and tumor tissue homogenate (PD)
• PRISM software to analyse biological data statistically

We conduct in-vivo anti-cancer experiments using both Athymic Nude and SCID mice. Maximum data will be collected from the experiment for detailed investigation and behaviour of the test compound against the tumor growth. We extract numerous read outs from the xenograft experiment such as…. Tumor volume, Relative Tumor volume, Tumor Growth inhibition, %T/C, Tumor growth delay, Log Cell Kill, Tumor weight, Change in Tumor volume doubling time, % Growth rate, Histopathological & immunohistochemical investigation with safety assessment parameters, Mean Body weight and % change in body weight and Clinical sign summary.