Health Biotechnology Research

Health Biotechnology Directorate is one of the core Directorates of the Ethiopian Biotechnology Institute. It is composed of 3 research teams including Vaccine development technology, pharmaceutical technology, and Diagnostic development technology. 

Health biotechnology is the use of living cells and cell materials to research and produces pharmaceutical and diagnostic products that help treat and prevent human diseases. The global development of the biotechnology sector is progressing at an extremely swift rate. In Ethiopia, the status of biotechnology is at an early stage. However, recently, biotechnological research in Ethiopia gets government attention and work in collaboration with the research institutions nationally and globally. In an effort to develop biotechnology in Ethiopia, the government prepared a national Biotechnology roadmap that could serve as a guide for the development of the field in the next decade and national Biotechnology infrastructure plan.

The health biotechnology directorate currently working to alleviate the main gaps in health and health-related national problems. The main goal of the directorate is to investigate, generate and disseminate suitable technologies and information in the areas of public and animal health for end-users to fulfill the high demand for health products of the country to increase production, productivity, and product quality by improving public health to support the overall agricultural development endeavors of the country. To achieve the target goals and for its substantial contribution to public health, the directorate develops and works on the identified prioritized thematic areas through national need assessment. 

Since its establishment, the health biotechnology directorate has been working on a vaccine, and diagnostics in collaboration with stakeholders working on health biotechnology such as EPHI, AHRI, NVI, NAHDIC, and public universities. In 2020, the directorate in collaboration with NVI manufactured and distributed the fowl cholera vaccine to African countries. In addition, the directorate currently working on the development of LAMP assay test kits to diagnose COVID-19, comparative lipidomic for development of M-tb based lipid biomarkers, animal vaccine development and improvement technology (polyvalent Marek´s disease virus vaccine for chickens), formulation of medicaments from herbs against some animal diseases. 

Based on the 5 years (2017-2022) research strategic plan, the directorate planned to establish the national virus research center, indigenous knowledge center, and HPV genotyping project in collaboration with BGI.