Welcome to the SPARK Africa Open Lab @ AiBST ​

The lack of infrastructure, in particular research laboratories, is a major constraint to Africa’s contribution to translational research. This lack of infrastructure has not only stifled research on the continent but has resulted in many young scientist going to the global north where such facilities exist. Further to that, it has frustrated the African scientists trained in the Global North on returning home where there are no facilities for them to continue their work. This lack of infrastructure has also discouraged collaborators in the Global North interested in doing work in Africa. The African Institute of Biomedical Research and Technology sort to address this challenge by transforming its R&D laboratory to a trifunctional platform (1) to continue supporting the institute’s R&D program, (2) to provide commercial services to sustain the platforms’ operations and (3) to be an Open lab platform for African academicians conducting translational research under the SPARK Africa initiative. This is turning out to be a very efficient use of both highly specialized equipment, skilled technicians and senior researchers as each of the functions above on its own had not been able to fully utilize the industry standard laboratories at AiBST. By having the three functions under the same roof, the Open lab model is creating highly collaborative opportunities for all parties involved which is hoped to spur more innovation. The SPARK Africa Open Lab @AiBST currently provides SPARK Africa academicians from across the continent access to industry standard facilities such as Genomics, Bioinformatics, Bioanalytics, Drug Metabolism and Pharmacokinetics,  a Phase I Clinical Trial Unit and a BSL3 facility. Work is ongoing to setup and operationalize other product development laboratory platforms such as the Computer Aided Drug Design (CADD), Medicinal Chemistry Laboratory, Formulation Technology Unit, HTS for drug discovery and others.​