AMBRELA was officially opened on 12 th February 2005 by the former Minister for Health Hon. Anna Abdallah. The laboratory is situated adjacent to Bombo Regional Hospital , Tanga City in the North East of Tanzania. Its strategic location offers a unique opportunity for investigators to utilise state of the art research facilities at the newest NIMR Laboratory.

AMBRELA consists of Clinical Pharmacology Laboratory with High Performance Liquid Chromatograph (HPLC) machine and ELISA reader for immunology, general laboratory which accommodates Microbiology and Parasitology sections, Clinical Chemistry and Haematology sections, Molecular biology Unit and CAT 3 laboratory for specialised work including cell culture and other systems which should be in sterile conditions. Other sections include data room, Internet facility, wash rooms, freezer rooms and a meeting room.

AMBRELA aims to become a regional centre of excellence for laboratory studies; field and hospital based clinical trials. For the past two years it has been working with its partners toward attaining Good Clinical and Laboratory Practices (GCLP) and will eventually be accredited. Through support from EU-AMANET funded project AMBRELA purchased Chemical and Haematology analysers in April 2006 and plans to purchase a Real Time PCR by the end of 2007.

Projects which operate under AMBRELA include:

• A study of malaria at Bombo Regional Hospital ,
• Epidemiological mapping of malaria in Muheza and Korogwe districts
• NIMR-AMANET funded project on establishing and strengthening sites for malaria vaccine trials
• RUF-ENRECA drug resistance surveillance project
• Monitoring of antimalarial resistance by in-vivo and in-vitro methods
• Prevention of mother to child transmission of HIV
• Human immunity and genetic studies under MalariaGEN ( www.malariagen.net )
• Monitaring and treatment of opportunistic infections,adverse drug events and their relationship to treatment outcome for patients under ARV treatment in Tanga region. Others projects are

• Human monoclonal antibodies as tools for malaria research and therapy
• A multi-centre open label randomised comparison of injectable Artesunate and quinine in patients with severe falciparum malaria in Africa
• Intermitent preventive treatment for malaria in infants in an area with high resistence to SP
• Efficacy of Sulphadoxine/Pyrimethamine and chlorproguanil/dapsone in 6-59 month old children with uncomplicated malaria and how it relates to efficacy of Intermitent Preventive Treatment of Malaria in Infants. A study linked to Kili-IPTi study
• Malaria morbidity and immunity in children northern Tanzania
• Expression of variant surface antigens in children and mothers with different malaria syndromes in north-eastern Tanzania

Immediate and future plans of AMBRELA are to purchase important equipment, recruit more staff including Biochemist/Molecular Biologist and Analytical chemist, revise documents on Quality Assessment (QA) and Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) for the Laboratories and to develop proposals for funding and sustainability of the Laboratory after Gates Malaria Partnership (GMP) support which ended in January 2007.

For more information on AMBRELA , please contact

Laboratory Manager , AMBRELA
PO BOX 5004 , Tanga , Tanzania.
Email:tanga@nimr.or.tz
Phone: +255 27 2647957
Fax: +255 27 2642010


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