Insectarium
At Present the centre has one insectorium which was developed before 19 years. Here cyclic colony of three genus of mosquitoes i.e. Aedes aegypti ( LV strain), Anopheles stephensi and Culex quinquefasciatus maintained. The reared mosquito species were used in insecticide susceptibility status test, larvicidal bioassay plant extract bioassay test.The different plant extract having larviciding properties tested in our insectorium by our scientist and scientist from other Institute also send their material for testing. Cyclic development of Brugia malayi L3 developed and different aspects of and immunological studies were carried out by our scientist of the Institute. The insectorium was used for giving training to different persons time to time.
Now we are proposing for conducting virology work ie on Chikungunya, Dengue, West Nile and JE so proper maintenance of Aedes aegypti, Ae.albopictus and Culex vishnui group of mosquito will be maintained so a special infected room will be maintained with utmost care so that a single mosquito can not be escaped.
To investigate the interaction between parasites and mosquito under natural conditions, An. stephensi will be fed on infected human blood, using the artificial membrane feeding technique. Gene expression will be monitored at 14, 24, 48 h and 10 days post infected blood meal, corresponding to the transformation of zygote into ookinetes, to the interaction of ookinetes with the peritrophic matrix and mid gut cells, and to the migration and early differentiation of ookinetes into oocysts, and sporozoites stages respectively.
We are now planning to modernization of the insectorium which is required for the centre for conducting future work. In our plan we divided the entire facility into three section i.e. larval rearing space, adult rearing room and infected mosquito room. Necessary required equipment s for each space is mentioned in the planning.