On Friday, November 17, a delegation from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, including H.E Eng. Abdulaziz bin Hamad Al-Rumaih, Deputy Minister of Health, and eight executives from organizations within the Ministry, came to Japan and visited BioBank Japan (BBJ). The delegation was given an overview of BBJ by Professor Koichi Matsuda (Graduate School of Frontier Sciences/Institute for Medical Sciences), the Director of BBJ, Professor Takayuki Morisaki (Graduate School of Frontier Sciences/Institute for Medical Sciences), and Professor Yukinori Okada (Graduate School of Medicine). After a lively Q&A session, the delegation toured the BBJ sample storage facility.

The visit was organized by the Ministry of Health of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, which is considering bilateral cooperation with Japan in the fields of healthcare and biotechnology, to inspect the operational system of BBJ, a leading Japanese disease oriented biobank, in order to study the specifics of cooperation between the both countries.

BBJ welcomes visitors from a wide range of backgrounds, including government officials, research and educational institutions, private companies, patient groups, and students etc.