The Drug Metabolomics laboratory at Tripura University was established in the year 2021-22 with the help of a grant received from the Department of Biotechnology, Govt. of India, New Delhi under the “Research Resources Services Facility and Platforms”“Scientific Infrastructure Access for Harnessing Academia University Research Joint Collaboration” (DBT-RRSFP-SAHAJ) programme.
The major objective of this programme is to establish a drug metabolomics lab for the north-eastern states of India for testing various drugs and their metabolites. Research at the laboratory is primarily focused on developing LC/MS methods for the detection of narcotics, steroids and other drugs of abuse in any given biospecimens.
The Drug Metabolomics Laboratory is equipped with state-of-the-art facilities like UPLC-QToF HRMS/MS instruments that allow both targeted and non-targeted metabolomics assays to be conducted on a wide array of samples including plasma, blood spots, tissue, urine, and cell culture. For targeted analyses, the lab deploys the above instruments to measure specific metabolites of Narcotics and other drug of abuse. The lab also has all the necessary sophisticated equipment such as semi-preparative HPLC with fraction collector, ultra-low temperature freezer, high volume cold storage cabinets, high-speed refrigerated centrifuge, ultra-pure (Type-1) water purifier, analytical balance, lyophilizer, vacuum concentrator, probe and bath sonicator, laminar clean bench, parallel reaction station and extractor, particle size analyser and Real Time-PCR.