The DNA database

Providing a registry to screen, record and analyze genetic data can go a long way to explore the distribution of hereditary diseases, identify potential cases in families with an afflicted member, identify the culprit mutations and perform more effective prenatal screening tests in order to control the distribution of these diseases.

Activities

2007: The database was implemented with the aim of collecting and long-term storage of samples from primary immunodeficiency patients and their family members and first-degree relatives, for screening, definitive diagnosis and future research.

2008: The database was extended to include allergy and asthma patients’ plasma bank.

2015: Blood cells are also being collected and stored from primary immunodeficiency patients along with their clinical data after obtaining an informed consent on their first visit.

2016: The database was extended to collect HLA typing data from the bone marrow of referral patients and their donors.

Method

1. Identification of patients with definitive diagnosis of primary immunodeficiency diseases, allergies or asthma.
2. Acquisition of informed consent and the patients’ clinical data.
3. Scheduling for patient referral.
4. Confirm if extra blood sample is not already available for analysis.
   
5. Sampling of blood in heparin and EDTA-coated containers for cell isolation and DNA extraction respectively.
6. Sampling of blood in anticoagulant-free containers for plasma separation.
7. HLA-typing for referral patients and donors.
8. A unique code is assigned for each patient’s samples and data and registered in the database with privacy considerations.