Vision Statement:
To achieve and disseminate excellence in the areas of basic, applied and translational research in the field of Molecular Medicine to overcome disease.
Overview:
The Centre of Molecular Medicine and Biobanking was inaugurated on the 26th June 2016. The University of Malta together with the Ministry of Education and Employment have invested around 6.5 Million Euro to bring the Centre into fruition.
The centre was inaugurated at a critical time in the socio-economic development of Malta. Advanced education and training create work-places with much higher value added. Mater Dei Hospital and the Life Science Park across the road from the University should complement each other in the further development of Life Science Research and Medical Biotechnology. We anticipate that some of the fruits of the Centre may be translated into new business development by indigenous Maltese companies that may be located in the Life Science Park. They will benefit us all, both from a health and an economic perspective permitting new tools for investment.
Research on Human Genomics and Genetics Medicine has been conducted at the University for many years, but more so in the last 30. It has resulted in a number of Masters, Ph.D. and postdoctoral students taking up the mantle in this field. As the research programs grew, the need for this Centre became more acute. Today, some 25-brand new state of the art laboratories house around 60 researchers, and as other projects mature it is envisaged that the number will grow to 100. For the very first time, the University has in place the critical mass to enhance new advances in this specific area of health, that is to create a cluster, that is moving more and more up the path to what is known as personalised or precision medicine, i.e. “your own treatment for your own disease”.
The researchers here try to understand the role of particular molecules that form part of the intricate pathways within the body that give rise, for example, to the formation of new cells and in turn the death of cells at the appropriate time. Errors may give rise to Congenital Disorders, Developmental Disorders, Cancer and other types of common or rare diseases. These molecules in turn are synthesised by our cells in which the blue-print is held in our DNA. The Human Genome encodes around 20,000 genes and the code per se is written in 3 billion letters. Sequencing the genome, and, more to the point the Maltese Genome, has been accomplished by University researchers that form a core part of the Centre. In the meantime, they established the Biobank that provided the essential samples under high quality standards through its membership of the BioBanking and BioMolecular Resources Research Infrastructure of the European Commission in which we represent the Government of Malta.
Consequently, it is now possible to study the role of particular genes and their resultant molecules both in health and disease for the discovery of new personalised medicines. In order to do so Bioinformatics provides the tools to find the appropriate sites through which one may be able to target the development of any of all the different types of medications to target the cause of concern. The Centre has now been awarded an ERA Chair in Bioinformatics to cover the next five-year period, 2023-2028, in which a team of talented individuals in the field to be led by a renowned scientist will join us to further accelerate the development of the search for novel treatments in this domain.
As outlined above, major inroads have in the main been made to date on two of the three fronts, namely, basic, and applied research with respect to blood disorders, breast cancer, Leukaemia, ALS, Parkinson’s disease, Colorectal cancer, multiple sclerosis, stroke and some others. It is now clear that the ability to translate these breakthroughs into ones available at the bedside will be a key goal of the Centre in the forthcoming years.