Two Major Human Biobanks Collaborate to Advance Precision Health Upgrades!

Taiwan will enter a super-aged society by 2025, prompting the national health policy to proactively address disease prevention. By developing the three major fields of "preventive medicine, predictive medicine, and personalized medicine," Taiwan aims to achieve the goals of precision health. Human biobanks play a crucial role in this effort, helping predict individual disease trends, prevent diseases early, and reduce medical expenses, thereby promoting healthy aging.

This year (2021), Academia Sinica, for the first time, has partnered with theMJ Health Research Foundation in a human biobank collaboration project. By expanding the number of community health participants, they aim to accelerate proactive deployment. Former Vice President and Academia Sinica Academician Chen Chien-Jen expressed high expectations for this first academic-industry collaboration, emphasizing that precision health is a vital next step in Taiwan’s biomedical development.

Academia Sinica’s representative of the Taiwan Biobank, Lee Teh-Chang, and Chairman of the Translational Research Foundation, Shih Yao-Tang, both highlighted the spirit of academic-industry collaboration in this partnership. This collaboration is expected to diversify the human biobank, paving the way for integrating vast data from both parties and establishing the strongest national support for precision health.

Human Biobanks as the Foundation, Precision Health as the Next Step in Taiwan’s Biomedical Development

Former Vice President Chen Chien-Jen: Promoting Precision Health Will Reduce Medical Costs and Help Achieve Healthy Aging

In response to the development of a super-aged society, "precision health" has become one of Taiwan’s strategic priorities and an important next step for the biomedical industry. Former Vice President Chen Chien-Jen pointed out, "Human biobanks are the cornerstone of precision health development. By analyzing localized data, we can proactively deploy health strategies for the population, predict and prevent diseases before they occur, and even provide personalized treatments. This approach not only reduces medical expenditures but also helps achieve healthy aging, boosts the national workforce, and supports the development of the biomedical industry through data applications."

Since 2012, Academia Sinica has been collecting data for the Taiwan Biobank, accumulating approximately 160,000 biological data points. The biobank’s data has been open to private research applications, leading to over 180 research projects and more than 200 research papers published in international journals, with a data usage rate exceeding one billion instances. This highlights the significant contribution of the human biobank and precision health to the biomedical industry, showcasing Taiwan’s research capabilities to the world.

Cross-Industry Collaboration with the Largest Private Database! "Academia Sinica" and "Translational Research Foundation" Form the Precision Health National Team

Academia Sinica: Enhancing Human Biobank Capacity to Proactively Deploy Health Strategies for the Population

Breaking away from past collaborations primarily with medical centers, Academia Sinica has, for the first time, partnered with the industry to form a precision health national team. Lee Teh-Chang, representing the Taiwan Biobank, explained that the establishment of human biobanks is a key development project in advanced countries. Despite the global pandemic’s impact, Taiwan has continued to collect data steadily. Previously, Academia Sinica’s collaboration was mainly with domestic hospitals, posing challenges in collecting comprehensive health participant information. The MJ Health Biobank, the largest private community data biobank in Taiwan, offers rich resources of community health participants, aiding in the diversification of the Taiwan Biobank.

Chairman Shih Yao-Tang of the MJ Health Research Foundation stated that the MJ Health Biobank has accumulated over 140,000 local data points and 3 million data points across Asia. With extensive experience in health participant data collection, these data points help understand pre-disease health indicators and predict the relationship between lifestyle, genotype, environment, and disease occurrence, thus proactively deploying health strategies for the population.

Combining MJ Health’s Extensive Participant List to Accelerate Biobank Data Collection

Academic and Industry Partnership Elevates Precision Health, Ensuring Long, Healthy Lives

This collaboration not only enhances the diversity of biobank data but also benefits from the MJ Group’s health management unit, MJ Clinic, which has a history of over 30 years and has examined 2.8 million individuals. Annually, the clinic continues to see 60,000 examinees. Chairman Shih Yao-Tang explained, "The extensive long-term examination list helps accelerate data collection, enriching the Taiwan Biobank’s comprehensiveness." Additionally, the MJ Group’s patented automated health check-up technology, applied in MJ Clinic, allows examinees to complete hundreds of tests within 4-5 hours, further advancing precision health.

This cross-industry collaboration is expected to leverage MJ Clinic’s extensive participant list and professional service quality to accelerate the establishment of Taiwan’s local biomedical research, enhancing the implementation of precision health. This will help detect the relationships between various diseases and the population’s genes, environment, and habits early, promoting a long, healthy, and slow-aging life for the people.