Welcome
The Western Australian DNA Bank (WADB) is a world-class resource helping WA and Australian medical researchers to more easily conduct larger-scale health studies and so speed up their search for life-changing discoveries.
The project, funded by the Federal Government through the National Health and Medical Research Council of Australia, provides scientists with a state-of-the-art facility to store DNA samples needed to undertake critical medical research into common diseases such as breast cancer, colorectal cancer, and heart disease.
The WADB brings together large numbers of DNA samples under one roof in a highly secure way, and because of this, it is of extraordinary value to the nation's scientific community.
By helping to aid Australian researchers' access to larger collections of DNA samples, which can often be expensive and time consuming to collect, the outcomes of their studies are likely to be more reliable, therefore having an increased impact on the health of our community.
The Bank will also allow researchers to gain more value from Western Australia's unique and extensive population-based health data and assist them in making full use of our world-class informatics resources in order to uncover new breakthroughs in treating the genetic and environmental causes of important health disorders.
It will also be an important tool for current and future large population-based studies in WA, such as the existing Busselton Health Study and the Joondalup Family Health Study.
The initiative, which builds upon pre-existing facilities, is based at two separate sites in Perth, Western Australia, which maximises the safety of the DNA samples.
The project, which is overseen by The University of Western Australia Human Research Ethics Committee is led by The Centre for Genetic Epidemiology and Biostatistics under the direction of Professor Lyle Palmer and is managed by Dr Marion Macnish.
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