Animal Ethics
The animal house facility of RCP Kasegaon is available to boost the teaching, training and research facilities to meet the demands of Experimental Pharmacology. Qualified and technical personnel are always at hand to help carry out research and keep it in accordance with the standards established by the Committee for the Purpose of Control and Supervision of Experiments on Animals (CPCSEA). The Animal House is registered with the Committee for the Purpose of Control and Supervision of Experiments on Animals (CPCSEA), Ministry of Environment and Forests, Govt. of India (Reg. No- 1290/PO/Re/S/09/CPCSEA; first Date of Registration:-12/10/2009) and has an established Institutional Animal Ethics Committee (IAEC) that advises the students, teachers/researchers on facilities, policies and practices concerning the care and use of animals.
Animal care
The laboratory houses rats, mice and rabbits. Each species of animals is housed in barrier maintained individual rooms to avoid disease transmission and inter-species conflicts. All efforts are made to maintain the animals under controlled environmental conditions [Temperature (22-30°C), Relative Humidity (60 ± 20 %), and 12 hr alternate light and dark cycle] with 100 % fresh air exchange in animal rooms and uninterrupted power and water supply. The support staffs ensures that every part of animal care including feeding, watering, restraining, cage cleaning, record keeping and ordering of animals, feeds, bedding materials and equipment from outside sources are monitored. The animals themselves are isolated from human habitation and guarded from dust, smoke, noise, wild rodents, insects and birds-in fact anything that would disturb their habitat. A high degree of hygienic conditions (macro- and micro- environment) around the animals are maintained as per the CPCSEA guidelines.
Research
The animal house facility at RCP Kasegaon is a well-established facility for carrying out in house research activities involving the animal experiments. Majorly, it maintains small laboratory animals like mice, rats and rabbits for animal experimentations such as screening the various plant extracts, phytopharmaceuticals, synthesized compounds, etc and other research studies. The projects involving the animals are only carried out by the researchers after the project approval by the Scientific Advisory Committee and the Institute Animal Ethics Committee (IAEC) of the Institute.
Currently the IAEC have approved the various research programs as following:
1) Toxicological studies
2) Anti-inflammatory studies
3) Chronic pain modulating
4) Anti Anxiety studies
5) Analgesic studies
6) Hepatoprotective studies
7) Anti-diabetic studies
8) Immunomodulatory studies
9) Ulcer protective studies
10) Anticancer studies
