South African National Bioinformatics Institute (SANBI)

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UWC HIV drug resistance test innovation18 February 2016

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Browsing by Author "Abayomi, Akin"

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    Careful governance of African biobanks
    (Elsevier, 2020) Christoffels, Alan G.; Abayomi, Akin
    The Sydney Statement is one of the first framing documents on the principles for guiding global health security. Framing matters because the funding pool for development assistance for health is finite and has plateaued over the past decade.2,3 Investments in global health security to prevent future catastrophes are subject to competing health priorities, such as scaling up the “most essential interventions” against ongoing epidemics of preventable morbidity and mortality in mothers, infants, and children in the Global South.4 Development assistance for health that prioritises global health security could overwhelm or detract attention from multiple competing health priorities.3
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    Challenges of biobanking in South Africa to facilitate indigenous research in an environment burdened with human immunodeficiency virus, tuberculosis, and emerging non-communicable diseases
    (Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., 2013) Abayomi, Akin; Christoffels, Alan; Grewal, Ravnit; Karam, Locunda A.; Rossouw, Catherine; Staunton, Ciara; Swanepoel, Carmen; van Rooyen, Beverley
    The high burden of infectious diseases and the growing problem of noncommunicable and metabolic disease syndromes in South Africa (SA) forces a more focused research approach to facilitate cutting-edge scientific growth and public health development. Increased SA research on these diseases and syndromes and the collection of associated biospecimens has ensured a plethora of biobanks created by individuals, albeit without the foresight of prospective and collective use by other local and international researchers. As the need for access to high-quality specimens in statistically relevant numbers has increased, so has the necessity for the development of national human biobanks in SA and across the Continent. The prospects of achieving sustainable centralized biobanks are still an emerging and evolving concept, primarily and recently driven by the launch of the H3Africa consortium, which includes the development of harmonized and standardized biobanking operating procedures. This process is hindered by a myriad of complex societal considerations and ethico-legal challenges. Efforts to consolidate and standardize biological sample collections are further compromised by the lack of full appreciation by national stakeholders of the biological value inherent in these collections, and the availability of high quality human samples with well-annotated data for future scientific research and development. Inadequate or nonexistent legislative structures that specifically regulate the storage, use, dispersal, and disposal of human biological samples are common phenomena and pose further challenges. Furthermore, concerns relating to consent for unspecific future uses, as well as access to information and data protection, are all new paradigms that require further consideration and public engagement. This article reviews important fundamental issues such as governance, ethics, infrastructure, and bioinformatics that are important foundational prerequisites for the establishment and evolution of successful human biobanking in South Africa.