Laboratory animals are a very important part of life sciences research and without them, research is almost impossible. DRL, Tezpur has a well-maintained Animal House Facility, housing four species of animals, namely Swiss Albino Mice (Mus musculus), Wistar Rats (Rattus Norvegicus), English Guinea pigs (Cavia porcellus) and New Zealand White Rabbits (Oryctolagus cuniculus). The animals are provided with optimal husbandry conditions and proper temperature, humidity and lighting arrangements are in place. They are provided with a balanced ration and have access to clean drinking water.
DRL animal house is registered with the Committee for the Purpose of Control and Supervision of Experiments on Animals (CPCSEA), under the Prevention of Cruelty to the Animals Act, 1960 (Chapter 4, Sec.15-1). The laboratory has a CPCSEA approved standing Institutional Animal Ethical Committee (IAEC). The committee conducts regular meetings as per CPCSEA guidelines. Protocols for animal experiments are submitted to the committee and it studies each of the study meticulously before approving the protocols submitted.
This facility is meant for in vitro cultures of plants and microalgae providing controlled condition for their optimum growth. The growth condition is maintained at 25±2°C with a photoperiodic light and dark cycle of 16: 08 hours. It also has facility for cell suspension cultures for production of secondary metabolites.
Medicinal plants, Orchids are propagated in specially designed houses. These indigenous plants are being grown for conservation and demonstration. DRL has a collection of 50 indegenous medicinal plants consisting of herbs, rhizomes, grasses, creepers, climbers and shrubs. This facility also serves as mother stock for further multiplication of the medicinal plants. A special house meant for growing orchids providing them 50% shade and humidity. It houses around 25 tropical and sub-tropical orchids indigenous to North East India. Most of the orchids housed in the orchidarium are epiphytic with few terrestrial ones. One of the endangered orchid Lady’s Sleepers is being conserved in this unit.
The Entomology section has a well-maintained mosquito rearing and bioassay facility in which all developmental stages of Anopheles, Culex and Aedes mosquitoes are being reared at ambient temperature and humidity for experimental purpose. The larvae are used for evaluating the efficacy of natural or synthetic larvicides, whereas the adult females are used for evaluating mosquito repellents or other mosquito control agents.
Decomposition of organic solid wastes is usually carried out by the action of both microorganisms and earthworm (vermin-composting).
DRL has been involved in composting by using organic material like garden and kitchen wastes. Earthworms are used to make the compost material from wastes. Process:
Defence Research Laboratory has a detachment at Salari in West Kameng district of Arunachal Pradesh. It is located in the mid hills at an altitude of 1069 m. The latitude and longitude of the area is N 270 32‘56’’ and E 920 43’ 70” respectively. The unit has a total area of 20 acres. It has a Fruit & vegetable processing unit, a mini laboratory, mushroom cultivation and vermicomposting unit. It has three different protected structures viz. polycarbonate greenhouse, polyhouse and net house for conducting different vegetable trials. It also has various fruit germ plasm collection comprising of 1000 plants and an herbal garden as well. Training on food processing is regularly conducting for the local farmer’s periodically. The unit has been developed into a skill development centre for developing skill sets of the local farmers in the areas of value addition of farm produce, mushroom spawn production and modern nursery techniques.
Defence Research Laboratory (DRL), Tezpur has a field detachment at Tawang in the state of Arunachal Pradesh. The altitude of the detachment is about 10,000 feet above MSL. The detachment has facilities for field trial of vegetable crops in open & protected environment, facilities for mushroom cultivation and vermicomposting. Besides DRL, other sister DRDO laboratories like DIHAR, DIBER, DFRL, DIPAS, INMAS, DIPR, DEBEL are also contributing in the research activities at this detachment.TheTawang area of Arunachal Pradesh has tremendous scope for R&D activities in the multidisciplinary areas of Life Sciences, Biotechnology, Physiology and allied sciences like Agriculture & Horticulture. The DRL detachment at Tawang in the near future will play a major pivotal role in establishing a civil - military interface in the border & forward areas in Tawang sector.