Al Jalila Foundation, a member of the Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum Global Initiatives, announced that it will establish the UAE’s first robotic biobank, in partnership with the Mohammed Bin Rashid University of Medicine and Health Sciences (MBRU) and the Dubai Health Authority (DHA). The collaboration is set to advance medical research in the areas of genetic disorders, cancer and other chronic diseases and pandemics.
Set to open in 2023 with a capacity to manage seven million specimens, the biobank will be one of the world’s largest in terms of sample capacity. The facility will be located at the Mohammed Bin Rashid Medical Research Institute, part of Al Jalila Foundation, in Dubai Healthcare City.
Due to the vital role biobanks play in progressing research and advancing medical discovery, the biobank will become an indispensable resource for the new Hamdan Bin Rashid Cancer Charity Hospital and other healthcare facilities in the UAE to conduct research and offer effective treatment.
A biobank is a place to store all types of human biological samples, such as blood, tissue, cells, or body fluids. It also stores data related to the samples as well as other biomolecular resources that can be used in health research. Biobanks have become an important resource in medical research, supporting many types of contemporary research like genomics and personalised medicine, and the development of diagnostics and therapeutics.
It will operate in the best practices in biobanking and adhere to the highest compliance regulations and ethical standards for the collection, processing, storage and analysis of biological samples and data for research into genetic and environmental factors that impact on human health and disease.
For more information on Al Jalila Foundation, please visit www.aljalilafoundation.ae.
