India sets up its first diabetes biobank in Chennai

The Indian Council for Medical Research (ICMR), in collaboration with Madras Diabetes Research Foundation (MDRF), has established India’s first diabetes biobank in Chennai.

A biobank is a facility where biological samples, including blood, plasma, serum, DNA, RNA, urine, tissue samples, and health information are kept for advanced research.

As per the MDRF website, the biobanking facility ‘is focused on networking with the foundation’s various departments in the study of the causal pathways involved in diabetes and its complications’.

The website states that the facility is equipped with 7 freezers [15 freezers at -80°C and 2 freezers at -20°C].

“Currently; the facility has in storage approximately 75,000 blood samples, 10,000 serum samples, 16,000 genetic samples (whole blood samples and samples taken on filter paper) and 5,000 urine samples obtained from its population-based studies,” the MDRF states.

Before this, in July 2006, MDRF was designated as an ‘Advanced Centre for Genomics of Type 2 Diabetes’ by ICMR.

This comes days after Dr V Mohan, chairman of MDRF, was elected Honorary Fellow of the International Diabetes Federation (IDF), one of the most prestigious recognitions in the global diabetes community.

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