Eijkman Molecular Biology Research Center

The Eijkman Molecular Biology Research Center in Jakarta, Indonesia traces its origin to January 15, 1888, when it opened as the Geneeskundig Laboratorium, a colonial-era medical laboratory. It is named for Christiaan Eijkman, who worked there and discovered that beriberi is caused by a dietary lack of thiamine, a finding that helped found the study of vitamins and later earned him a Nobel Prize. The institute was reopened in its present molecular-biology form on July 31, 1992, and today conducts research from a Jakarta laboratory equipped with one of Indonesia's few Biosafety Level 3 facilities, capable of gas decontamination. Since September 2021 it has operated under Indonesia's National Research and Innovation Agency, within that agency's Life Sciences Research Organization, having previously sat under the Ministry of Research and Technology.