UMBI Celebrates its 11th Anniversary

Today marks the 11th anniversary of UMBI. It has been quite a journal. Our beginning was humble and small. UMBI was quietly launched on the 1st of July 2003 with the appointment of the first director and shared a small office with the research secretariat of the Faculty of Medicine. The university gave UMBI RM25,000 to start its operations, a small sum to many but to us it was an impetus to begin our journey.

UMBI is fortunate to have great team with the passion for research and excellence. UMBI has also been fortunate to land and lead a few key national projects. The Malaysian Cohort is now well known by the scientific fraternity (Jamal et al, 2014). The Biobank, the biggest in South-East Asia, which has been developed is a precious national resource. The space experiments carried and conducted by our first astronaut to the International Space Station in October 2007 was also a recognition by the National Space Agency (ANGKASA) on UMBI’s capabilities. We now have the first simulated microgravity laboratory in the country. UMBI also participated in the MyGenome project with 26 individuals from the Cohort. We are now embarking on the 1000-MyGenome project. UMBI’s genome sequencing laboratory is among the most comprehensive in the country.

UMBI also has 2 laboratories which have been accredited: the MS-ISO 15189-2012 for the Bioanalytical Laboratory (The Malaysian Cohort) and the MS-ISO 17025 for the DNA Sequencing Laboratory. UMBI is also providing certain molecular diagnostic services to the hospital patients including for thalassaemias, pharmacogenetic testing for HLA-B1502*, and for K-ras and B-raf mutations.

UMBI is now recognised as a Higher Institution Centre of Excellence (HICoE) by the Ministry of Education. UMBI is now fully operational at its new building. We would like to extend our invitation to researchers, both local and international, to collaborate with us. Visit us at www.ukm.my/umbi or send us an email at farlizaz@ppukm.ukm.edu.my.

Happy Anniversary UMBI!