The Division has a mandate for its own research pursuits, collaborative research work and pathology service to other divisions of NIN as well as outside institutions. The main activities of the division include carrying out departmental research projects which include studies on nutrition, cancer, anaemia, food allergy, developmental studies and food microbiology. Collaborative research projects with other divisions of the institute, pre-clinical toxicology projects, histopathology opinion / review for industry, surgical pathology services for local hospitals & diagnostics and hematology and clinical pathology for research as well as for the staff and their families are also undertaken. The Microbiology section is involved in regular microbiological analysis of food samples for research on food safety issues and regulatory purposes.
The division has up-to-date laboratory equipment for carrying out hematology, histopathology, immunohistochemistry and microbiological studies.
Presently the division is working on identification of inhibitors of Aldose reductase activity from dietary sources as well as their use as adjuvants in cancer chemotherapy in addition to development and validation of food allergy (FA) survey questionnaire in Indian population for assessing the prevalence of FA in children, adolescents and adults. A study to understand the effect of iron deficiency anaemia on iron metabolism in the placenta is underway. The Microbiology Division is working on Bio-food preservation by isolating bacteriophages infecting Salmonellaf>rom sewage and using these phages for decontamination of Salmonella in food. The division is also working on Microbiological Risk Assessment (MRA) by studying dose response of Salmonella survival and infection in an in-vitro model of the human intestinal tract as a proxy for foodborne pathogens.