Published on
Minister of Health Mrs. Faeqa Al-Saleh inaugurated the National Genome Center at Salmaniya Medical Complex, aiming to collect 50,000 samples within five years.
In implementation of the directives of His Royal Highness Prince Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa, the Crown Prince, Deputy Supreme Commander, and First Deputy Prime Minister, regarding the importance of ensuring that government services are provided to citizens with the highest quality, and continuing development and modernization in pursuit of excellence in a manner that enhances citizens' trust in health services, and following His Highness's announcement during the Government Forum 2019 of the launch of the National Genome Center, Her Excellency the Minister of Health, Ms. Faeqa bint Saeed Al Saleh, inaugurated the National Genome Center this Monday morning, October 14, 2019, at the Fateh Building in the Salmaniya Medical Complex, in the presence of a number of senior officials from the Ministry of Health and the center's founding team.
Minister Al Saleh said that the National Genome Center will contribute to the prevention of genetic diseases and the development of effective medications to treat them, which will help provide a healthy life and disease prevention for current and future generations. She affirmed the Ministry of Health's commitment to implementing the directives emphasized by His Royal Highness the Crown Prince, Deputy Supreme Commander, and First Deputy Prime Minister to the various sectors, aimed at increasing the pace of progress in these sectors in a way that reflects on achieving more developmental accomplishments for the Kingdom and its citizens, as well as the recommendations regarding the National Genome Center, which aims to collect 50,000 samples within 5 years and establish a comprehensive national database with the goal of improving quality and continuing to adopt modern health technologies that will help with diagnosis and developing innovative solutions for citizens.
The Minister of Health explained that the steps to establish the National Genome Center began last year, in the context of the government's support for innovative health sciences focused on the sole radical treatment for genetic diseases facing Bahraini society. Out of its keenness to raise the quality of health services and prevent diseases, particularly genetic, intractable, and fatal diseases, and by adopting the latest innovative scientific methods, the idea of establishing a specialized center for gene analysis was born.
Al Saleh pointed out that the Ministry of Health has taken the necessary steps and measures to establish the center, noting that actual steps have begun in establishing the biobank for storing biological samples, such as DNA currently, and in the future storing tissues for the purpose of studying them, at the Salmaniya Medical Complex affiliated with the Ministry of Health, to become a leading center in the region in providing an interactive platform for supplying the samples necessary for conducting studies and research.
It is worth noting that the genome laboratory building consists of 3 main sections within the laboratory: the biobank for receiving samples from participants from the Kingdom of Bahrain and then extracting genetic material; the molecular genetics section for analyzing all diseases, with some analyses sent outside Bahrain; and the third section, cytogenetics, which deals with the various chromosomes to determine their number.
