PARLIAMENT QUESTION: Promotion of Non-Animal Methods in Scientific Research

The Ministry of Science & Technology notes that limited validated human‑relevant, non‑animal models slow drug discovery and increase reliance on animal studies. To address this, laboratories under CSIR, ICMR and DBT are promoting advanced in‑vitro, 3D tissue/organoid, cell‑based and computational approaches. ICMR has funded 109 projects across 71 institutes; eight CSIR labs report capabilities in New Approach Methodologies; DBT autonomous institutes such as inStem (Bengaluru) and THSTI (Faridabad) have dedicated infrastructure for organ‑on‑chip, organoid and stem‑cell platforms. BIRAC supports the Centre for Predictive Human Model Systems at CCMB, Hyderabad, which maintains a publicly accessible database of researchers working on these non‑animal systems.