​A new collaboration between the European Union and African Institutions, the B3Africa project (Bridging Biobanking and Biomedial Research across Europe and Africa) is a multi-million rand grant awarded to fund global research infrastructure for biobanking and bioinformatics.

Eleven African and European partner institutions have jointly developed a collaboration framework and information infrastructure to facilitate and accelerate biomedical research across the continents and address global health challenges.

The Division of Haematological Pathology at the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences (FMHS) of Stellenbosch University (SU) and the South African National Bioinformatics Institute (SANBI) located in the University of the Western Cape (UWC) are the South African collaborators. The NHLS-SU Biobank (NSB), situated in Tygerberg Hospital and the FMHS, will act as a beta site for the proof of concepts.

Prof Akin Abayomi from the FMHS Division of Haematological Pathology highlighted the recent Ebola outbreak, as well as the increasing number of emerging infectious diseases, as indicative of the urgent need for more efficient ways to tackle global health challenges and improve global health security.

Prof Alan Christoffels, Professor of Informatics at SANBI, said that a solid and intensive cooperation between African and European stakeholders is an essential prerequisite to accelerate the research process for the benefit of humanity.

The B3 Africa project has two strategic aims:

• To create a harmonized ethical and legal framework between European and African partner institutions. Such a framework is essential for an acceptable informatics platform that will allow sharing of bio-resources and data and consolidating the Africa-EU biobank cooperation.
• To provide an “out-of-the-box” informatics solution that facilitates data management, processing and sharing that can be used under challenging networking conditions in Africa and Europe.

Other partners in B3Africa are the Sveriges Lantbruksuniversitet (SLU), the Biobanking and Biomolecular Resources Research Infrastructure Consortium (BBMRI-ERIC), the Karolinska Institutet (KI), the Centre for Research Ethics & Bioethics (CRB) at Uppsala University, the University of the Western Cape (UWC), Makerere University (MAK), the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), the Medizinische Universitat Graz (MUG) and the Institute of Human Virology Nigeria (IHVN).

Biobanking at SU

This is the second biobanking consortia grant that has been awarded to the Division of Haematology with Abayomi as the principal investigating collaborator. 

In 2014, Abayomi and his team were awarded a two year grant to develop a Biobank to support the Human Heredity and Health in Africa consortium (H3Africa). The aim of this biobank was to facilitate studies on biodiversity, disease and pharmacogenomics of African populations and support genomic research on kidney disease, diabetes, heart disease, obesity, tuberculosis and African sleeping sickness through inaugural grants. The grant was funded by the US National Institutes of Health and the Wellcome Trust.

Abayomi is also a Co-PI on the AIDS Cancer Specimen Resource (ACSR) Biobank led by Prof Johann Schneider from the Division of Anatomical Pathology as the principal investigator. This biobank is dedicated to cancer, and in particular HIV-related cancers. Specimens that will be stored at this multi-million rand facility are made available free of charge to African researchers and their collaborators who have ethically approved and funded research projects that benefit the health of people from Africa and globally and is funded by the National Cancer Institute (NCI).

“The staff from the NSB and the ACSR biobanks work closely together to support each other, and their facilities function as back-up storage for each other, which is a critical aspect of risk and disaster management in biobanking operations,” said Abayomi. 

Photo: Representatives of all the partner institutions at the inaugural meeting held at the University of the Western Cape, where the B3Africa consortium was launched.

This article appeared in the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences' digital publication VIVUS. Visit www.sun.ac.za/FMHSpublications to subscribe.