Important Facts For Prelims
THSTI: Part of Vaccine Assessment Project
- 06 Oct 2020
- 3 min read
Why in News
The Coalition of Epidemic Preparedness for Innovation (CEPI), a global initiative, has named Translational Health Science and Technology Institute (THSTI), Faridabad as one of the six laboratories for assessing Covid-19 vaccine candidates that are under development.
Key Points
- Six Laboratories:
- The CEPI network will initially involve six labs, one each in Canada, Britain, Italy, the Netherlands, Bangladesh and India.
- All the labs would use the same reagents (cause a chemical reaction) and follow a common set of protocols to measure the immune response of multiple vaccine candidates under development and trial.
- This will greatly harmonise the vaccine trial process and allow different vaccine candidates to be compared and speed up the selection of the most effective candidate.
- The mandate of the THSTI is to provide validated assays (analysis) for vaccine development on a par with global standards.
- Bioassay is the determination of the relative strength of a substance (drug) by comparing its effect on a test organism with that of a standard preparation.
- Coalition of Epidemic Preparedness for Innovation (CEPI):
- CEPI is a global partnership launched in 2017 to develop vaccines to stop future epidemics.
- CEPI was founded in Davos (Switzerland) by the governments of Norway and India, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Wellcome Trust, and the World Economic Forum.
- The Department of Biotechnology, Ministry of Science & Technology, and Government of India has been implementing the IndCEPI mission ‘India Centric Epidemic Preparedness through Rapid Vaccine Development: Supporting Indian Vaccine Development’.
- The objectives of this mission are aligned with that of CEPI and aims to strengthen the development of vaccines and associated competencies/technologies for the diseases of epidemic potential in India.
- Translational Health Science and Technology Institute (THSTI):
- It is an autonomous institute of the Department of Biotechnology (DBT).
- It is located in Faridabad (Haryana).
