Nigeria is building a national network to connect cancer research resources across eight federal hospitals, with an initial target of collecting and cataloguing 10,000 cancer biospecimens as the country strengthens its capacity for precision medicine and locally driven cancer research.
The National Cancer Biobank Network (NCBN), being implemented through a partnership between the National Institute for Cancer Research and Treatment (NICRAT) and health data infrastructure company BioVana, aims to standardise how cancer samples and associated data are collected, managed and made available for research.
The network spans Nigeria’s six geopolitical zones, with ambitions to expand its collection to 100,000 biospecimens by 2028. The initiative is intended to connect research resources currently distributed across institutions and establish a coordinated infrastructure for cancer studies and the development of more targeted treatments.
Under the partnership, NICRAT provides national leadership, institutional coordination and oversight, while BioVana is responsible for developing the digital infrastructure, aligning sample-management standards, training personnel and establishing research-ready systems at participating hospitals.
The implementation follows a memorandum of understanding signed by the organisations in 2025. Initial assessments of participating sites and a stakeholder workshop involving representatives from the World Health Organization and the International Society for Biological and Environmental Repositories have helped advance work towards common biobanking and quality standards.
Estelle Dogbo, BioVana’s co-founder and chief executive officer, said Nigeria already had substantial cancer research resources spread across institutions, but connecting them through shared standards and governance would make them more useful to researchers.
The network’s longer-term ambition is to support a national cancer research infrastructure that can facilitate collaboration among Nigerian institutions and contribute to international scientific discovery.
Professor Aliyu Malami Usman, director-general of NICRAT, said the initiative would lay the groundwork for a future central national cancer biobank supported by institutions across the country.
The project comes amid growing concern about the burden of cancer in Africa. According to Africa Cancer Control Partners, the continent recorded more than one million new cancer cases in 2020, with annual cases projected to reach two million over the following 15 years.
Biobanks store biological samples, such as tumour tissue and blood, alongside associated clinical and research data. When collected and managed under appropriate ethical and quality safeguards, these resources can help researchers investigate cancer biology, identify biomarkers and improve understanding of how patients respond to treatments.
For Nigeria, a coordinated network could also help address the underrepresentation of African populations in global biomedical research, enabling locally generated evidence to contribute to drug discovery and precision oncology.
Founded in 2025 by Dogbo and Dr Jumi Popoola, BioVana aims to connect African research institutions with the wider scientific community. The partners envision the NCBN as a potential model for developing nationally coordinated biomedical research infrastructure elsewhere in Africa.
The network’s impact will ultimately depend on consistent sample collection, robust data governance, sustained funding and the ability to translate research findings into better cancer care.
Article by Jed Mwangi
Photo courtesy :Google
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