The Indian Council for Medical Research (ICMR) and Madras Diabetes Research Foundation (MDRF) have set up India’s first diabetes biobank in Chennai. A biobank stores biological samples like blood, plasma, DNA, and health data for research. MDRF’s biobank focuses on studying diabetes and its complications. It has 7 freezers and stores around 75,000 blood samples, 10,000 serum samples, 16,000 genetic samples, and 5,000 urine samples. In 2006, MDRF was recognized as an advanced center for Type 2 diabetes genomics by ICMR.
