Rs seven million bio bank to be set up at PCMD

The first bio bank of Pakistan is being set up at Dr Panjwani Centre for Molecular Medicine and Drug Research, University of Karachi. An official of the University said here on Wednesday that the project would cost Rs 7 million.
It said that the International Center for Chemical and Biological Sciences (ICCBS), Karachi University, is setting up the first Bio Bank of Pakistan at the Dr Panjwani Center for MoleculIar Medicine and Drug Research at a cost of Rs 7 million to produce, revive and collect the living cells and tissues from different sources and faculties.
Specimen collections originated from living organisms are termed "biobank".
Therefore, there are human, animal, plant and microbiological biobanks. According to Acting Director, Professor Dr Muhammad Iqbal Choudhary the Bio Bank would be a source of biological material especially, human (normal and pathological) and animal tissues and cell cultures. He said that the Bio Bank was established for research purposes under supervision of Professor Dr Fatima Shad.
The bio bank will start functioning from January 2009 at the centre. The main objective of the Bio bank is to test drug cell interaction mainly as continuous cell line. Bio Bank technical staff will establish new, continuous cell lines after learning the technique of continuous cell line from primary cultured cells.
The bank will be a place that collects, stores, processes and distributes biological materials typically, human biospecimens (tissue or blood) and tissues from other animals, cell and bacterial cultures." He said, "PCMD is the only institution in the country focusing on training of students at MPhil, and PhD levels in the emerging fields of molecular medicine and drug research.
The research activities at PCMD are directed at tracking disease especially those that are prevalent in Pakistan with an aim of finding improved and novel ways of their diagnosis, treatment and prevention. Bank facilities include all the necessary staff and modern molecular biology capabilities such as micro-quantity liquid handling to isolate and manage the chemical components (such as DNA) from those tissues. Bio Bank can provide the biological materials to researchers." it was further stated.