Not-for-Profit Organization
for Management of Maximized Public Sector Benefits in Health Care

- Creator of Innovative Approaches to Intellectual Property Management
of Health Products for Improved Public Sector Access -
- Partner in Public-Private-Partnerships with Pharmaceutical Manufacturers -   

HIV SPECIMEN BANK

A Joint Project By
Concept Foundation And
Health Concepts International

There is a close link between reproductive health and the prevention of HIV transmission as well as the prevention of infection with other sexually transmitted diseases. It is the mission of Concept Foundation to make available high-quality health products at lowest possible costs for the benefit of the public sector in developing countries. Concept Foundation is already active in the field of HIV diagnostics through the licensing out of the technology for a HIV dipstick that is manufactured by several licensees and is widely used in the public sector.

A significant issue around the sero-diagnosis of HIV infections is the specificity and the sensitivity of the diagnostics test kits that are in use. As for the specificity, it is known that many non-HIV diseases produce antibodies and serum proteins in patients and are the cause for false-positive HIV tests in significant numbers. As for the sensitivity, it is known that not all HIV positive sample materials show an identical reactivity against commonly used diagnostics methods, but differ in the test outcomes from sample to sample. Therefore, a combination of different test methods and technologies is being applied to confirm a HIV positive result, which still doesn't yield conclusive results in every and each case. An example in case is the fact that indeterminate WB results may be obtained for patient specimens that are found to be HIV positive in Elisa tests, and that many diagnostics have weaknesses in detection of HIV antibodies during the seroconversion phase.

Many of these phenomena need further research. In order to conduct appropriate research  it is necessary to have access to suitable sample specimens, which reflect the various conditions of HIV positive and non-HIV diseases and cover a whole spectrum of diseases to study their influences on specificity and sensitivity. Easy access to and sufficient supply of  suitable research specimens are required to realize further improvements in diagnostics technologies; especially when research in public-sector research institutions worldwide is concerned that often suffer from severe budget limitations. Concept Foundation is acutely aware of this situation.

It has a significant impact on many research projects that commercially available samples are only available at very high price levels that are prohibitive for routine research applications for research groups especially in public-sector research organizations, but also in many small and medium-sized companies. This fact represents a distorted supply situation that prevents many organizations from obtaining critical samples routinely, which are desperately needed to support their research and quality assurance systems.

In accordance with the mission of Concept Foundation to make available high-quality health products at lowest possible costs we have initiated activities in this field to make available a routine supply of critical samples to projects that conduct research in the field of HIV determination and that depend on the regular supply of critical samples. Based on the non-profit character of our organization, Concept Foundation is establishing a global supply route for critical samples at cost levels especially to public sector research organizations so that affordable supply would be in their reach. Besides  research projects in public-sector research organizations, these samples will also be available to other research groups as long as they will generate distinct public-health benefits. Please contact us with your requests.

The redevelopment of our own HIV dipstick technology is the first project to make use of this wide stock of native samples from various disease groups - especially tropical diseases - for the improvement of specificity and sensitivity of the test procedure. More projects in collaboration with other research groups are established to work on the improvement of new diagnostic technologies to overcome past limitations.

More details about HIV specimen bank in the newly established Thailand Science Park, Pathumthani
  • Slide show (HTML)
  • PDF [1.7Mb]

Handling of infectious materials used in the HIV specimen bank is done under strict safety regulations. Pictured is a laboratory technician aliquoting samples of HIV specimens into sample tubes in a laminar flow box

Raw materials from the blood bank are used to create HIV specimens

Deep frozen specimens in the HIV specimen bank