ABUJA – The Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Institute of Human Virology of Nigeria (IHVN), Dr Patrick Dakum, said its planned bio-bank project would aid research in prevention and treatment of diseases across Africa.
Dakum said this in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja on Sunday.
He said the IHVN bio-bank is a tissue bio-repository made of special freezers in which samples could be stored over a long period of time for the purpose of research.
The official said researchers could use samples from the bio-bank to conduct important researches that would address diagnostic as well as treatment issues in the continent.
Dakum said the project would be based in Abuja and funded through an initiative for African scientists by the U.S. National Institute of Health.
“IHVN is a recipient of a grant by U.S. National Institute of Health and this grant is for the building of a tissue bio-repository containing freezers that will store samples for the purpose of research.
“You can now have a number of research samples that can be analysed and the analysis will provide a clue as to diagnostic issues and possible treatment issues for the future.
“Through this research you can link up people’s genes sequence to a particular kind of disease trait.
“Therefore, one can predict what kind of disease pattern that will come up in a country, this is what this special bio-bank can help to develop.’’
The IHVN CEO said the era of losing research samples as a result of poor storage conditions and inadequate storage facilities would soon be over.
He said the institute planned to move already existing freezers in its temporary facility to its permanent site, when completed.
According to Dakum, the IHVN bio-bank will keep research samples across West Africa and beyond for scientists venturing into related research works. [eap_ad_1] He said the aim of the bio-repository was to among other things promote studies in an area of medicine known as human heredity for health.
According to him, solutions to the prevalence of certain disease conditions in Africa like Ebola, Lassa fever and HIV could be found through researches conducted with the aid of the IHVN bio-bank.
He said that the entire project would be executed within the framework of the Federal Government’s health policy.
One of the mandates of the institute is to build capacity for research in the prevention or cure of communicable diseases in the country. (NAN)
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