1,2 million euros for the Leipzig Medical Biobank

Our Leipzig Medical Biobank 1,2 million euros for investments. Saxony's Science Minister Sebastian Gemkow informed about this today. "I am pleased that with these additional funds the technical infrastructure of the Leipzig Medical Biobank - which has been a central infrastructure of the LIFE Research Center for Civilization Diseases at the Medical Faculty of the University of Leipzig since 2010 as part of Saxony's State Excellence Initiative - can be modernized and the storage capacity expanded." , according to Gemkow. Six new state-of-the-art devices for the storage of biomaterials can be purchased from the 1,2 million euros. In total, the Leipzig Medical Biobank houses 14 devices. With the help of the investment funds, five older devices are now to be replaced and another one to be purchased.

Every day, people in German hospitals donate biomaterial and thus support medical progress. Biomaterials - including blood, tissue and other body material - are an indispensable raw material for medical research. With the help of biomaterials, doctors and scientists can identify the causes of diseases and develop new, targeted therapies. 1,8 million samples are currently stored in the Leipzig Medical Biobank. These were collected in advance in 55.000 visits by 40.000 participants, processed and then stored at temperatures below -150 degrees. Highly standardized procedures ensure the quality of the collected biomaterials for current and future research projects. To date, more than 80 partial samples have been made available for 130.000 scientific projects, including for the LIFE Child and LIFE Adult studies. Since 2017, samples from cancer patients have also been collected and stored, further expanding tumor research at the Leipzig University Medical Center.

Peggy Darius

Source: Message from the University of Leipzig on January 28, 2020