Two day symposium on ‘Strategies to Combat Economically Important Porcine & Poultry viruses in India‘ which was organized by NIAB in M K Bhan auditorium was concluded successfully on 4th October 2024.
The event gathered renowned animal biologists from the country and discussed various aspects related to animal husbandry and particular to animal viruses- types and hosts, challenges in combating them, vaccine production, regulatory challenges, surveillance measure, and many other interrelated points.
The symposium was inaugurated by Dr. G. Taru Sharma, Director, NIAB in MK Bhan Auditorium, NIAB. During the inaugural address Dr Taru explained how and why this symposium was ideated and thanked all the team members including Dr Madhuri, Dr Souvik Sen, Dr Hegde, Dr Sonu Gandhi, Dr Alam, among faculties; Techical Officer Shashi and administration staff of Director’s secretariat, guest house, transport, and canteen.
Dr Taru welcomed all delegates by wishing First Navratri and thanked them for covering miles to talk on important aspects of animal biotechnology. Among the notable speakers Dr Taru welcomed Dr. K. Kumanan, Former Director of Research, TANUVAS; Dr. Vivek Kumar Gupta, Director, ICAR-NRC-pig, Assam, Dr. M. R. Reddy, Principal Scientist, ICAR-DPR, Hyderabad; Dr. Nagarajan Shanmuga Sundaram and Dr. K. Rajukumar Principal Scientists, ICAR-NIHSAD, Bhopal; Dr Sai Kumar IVRI, CHIEF GUEST Dr L S Shashidhara, Director, NCBS and Prof Pallu Reddanna, Founding Director, NIAB, an eminent animal biotechnologist and Executive President, Federation of Asian Biotech Associations (FABA) among others.
The event was convened as oral presentations, brain storming discussions, and world lecture day. Scientists discussed different types of animal viruses like Newcastle disease Virus (NDV), Infectious Bronchitis Virus (IBV), Oncogenic viruses, porcine viruses- PRASV ASFV, PCV2 etc. The topic of discussions were their economic importance, history, structure and morphology, genotypes and pathotypes, available vaccines and other features that are important to increase poultry and porcine production in India.
Along with scientific discussions, industry partners also presented their work and services to the attendees. They discussed about the products and services to do animal research and regulatory requirements for animal based products manufacturing.
The Brainstorming exercises were also conducted to understand animal industry challenges and animal surveillance measures. Few big organizations were invited to share their expertise and experiences and future prospects for animal vaccine industry, The session was coordinated by scientists of Venky’s Global, a multimillion dollar 40 year old company of India; Representative from Indian Federation of Animal Health Companies (INFAH) a consortium of animal sciences industries, Dr Deepak Kumar from Globion and Immunereka and others.
World Animal Day Lecture was also included in the sessions because 4th October coincided with this symposium. For this lecture the special guest was Dr L S Shashidhara, Director of NCBS. He discussed animal biotech, wildlife conservation and shared his research highlights and experiences of using Drosophila as model organism of his research.
The last lecture in the series was presented by Dr N Saikumar I/C PME, ICAR-IVRI, Izatnagar, UP who discussed about the importance of animal surveillance in increasing productivity and resilience.
Concluding the event , Dr Madhuri on behalf of the Director, NIAB and organizing committee thanked speakers, moderators, chief guest, founding director of NIAB, sponsors, student volunteers and administrative staff for their warm presence in the event.
