Crossing the Victoria/South Australia Border
With around half of ASPREE participants living in regional and rural areas, the ASPREE Healthy Ageing Biobank team designed a mobile laboratory called an ASPREE ‘Biobus’.
We now have two Biobuses in Victoria and one in Tasmania.
Each vehicle is fully equipped to collect, process and store samples over several days at a time using a portable -80°C freezers.
Specimens can then be safely transported back to the main holding freezers in central locations.
The ASPREE Biobus takes research to the people. Since 2011, the ASPREE Biobuses have travelled approximately 200,000K (five times the circumference of the earth)– from Melbourne into regional Victoria, up into southern NSW, north Victoria and across the west Victorian border to Mount Gambier in South Australia.
The Tasmanian Biobus travels around the north western of the state near Launceston and Burnie.
In the future, samples donated to the ASPREE Healthy Ageing Biobank could lead to the identification of specific blood components to predict good health or disease, and to evaluate the effectiveness of treatments.
To find out more about the ASPREE Healthy Ageing Biobank and other ASPREE sub-studies click here.