Welcome to the Official Website of I-HAB .
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In 2010 the Institute of Human Virology Nigeria (IHVN) partnered with Institute of Human Virology-University of Maryland Baltimore (IHV-UMB), to establish a biorepository network in Nigeria to support clinical and research endeavors on HIV, TB, and associated diseases and malignancies. The biorepository network is made of three biorepositories located in Zaria, Jos, and Abuja. The central biorepository located in Abuja supported IHVN’s PEPFAR, research activities by investigators at IHVN and IHV-UMB funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the US Centers of Disease Control (CDC), the US Department of Defense, and others. In 2012, the Abuja biorepository successfully competed for an NIH grant award through the Human Heredity and Health in Africa (H3Africa) initiative (PI: Prof. Alash’le Abimiku), and thus was named the IHVN H3Africa Biorepository (I-HAB). H3Africa was established by NIH and Wellcome Trust to promote genomic research in Africa by Africans. As one of three regional biorepositories funded to support H3Africa, I-HAB supports African investigators in the West African region to ensure high quality biospecimen are available for future research. I-HAB supports six H3Africa research projects in this region providing a range of services that transcend traditional “Biobanking” services such as workflow and document development, on-site and centralized training, mentorship and pilot testing. Furthermore, I-HAB partnered the other regional H3Africa biorepositories in Johannesburg and Uganda to pilot and standardize guidelines, protocols, policies and ethical requirements to foster collaboration among biobanks and researchers of different African institutions and countries. I-HAB continues to seek out relationships that facilitate, support, and/or promote research that benefits investigators in Nigeria, Africa and beyond. |
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Vision Statement: |
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Repositioning the quality of biorepository services in the forefront of research in Africa. |
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Mission Statement: |
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To promote population and personal health by facilitating cutting edge research and collaborations among African research investigators and communities; and beyond; by providing high quality, affordable biobanking services |
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Objectives: |
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1. To process, store, maintain and distribute high quality biological specimen within appropriate ethical and cultural framework that will yield reliable and accurate results and promote research and collaborations, especially in genomic science. |
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2. To achieve and maintain an effective Quality Management System that ensures compliance with relevant statutory and safety requirements |
The central bio-repository in Abuja has been awarded an NIH funded Human Heredity and Health in Africa (H3Africa) biorepositories grant (Principal Investigator: Dr. Alash'le Abimiku) to upgrade its infrastructure and functions to international standard to support H3Africa investigators in Africa and eventually expand to other investigators as well.