Theodor Bilharz Research Institute (TBRI) is a governmental medical research institution named after the German scientist Theodor Bilharz who discovered, in autopsy material at Kasr El Aini hospital, the causative agent of haematuria : Schistosoma worm, during his work in Egypt in 1851.

The idea of initiating the institute was elaborated in 1960 via high council of science, owing to the magnitude of schistosomiasis problem in Egypt specially in the rural population and its impact on the socioeconomic life. The objective of the institute was to tackle this diseases from all its aspects : control, diagnosis and management.

In 1960, Prof Dr. Ahmed Hafez Mousa ,the real originator of the institute and one of the world's pioneers in the field of Tropical Medicine was charged to fulfill this idea. He appointed the Tropical Medicine Department at Kasr El Aini, Faculty of Medicine a preliminary location for a small nuclear start of this project. This was followed by the establishment of a "Laboratory for Schisosomiasis Research in the Chemistry building of the National Research Center.

 In April 1962, the foundation stone of the institute was implemented at Warak El Hader's village in Giza governorate. Meanwhile the building of the institute was constructed by Egyptian Government, the laboratories and hospital were equipped through an agreement between the governments of Federal Republic of Germany and Egypt in 1964.

In the same year, the institute was officially affiliated to the Ministry of Scientific Research By June 1978 the TBRI's laboratories and out-patients clinic were inaugurated. The attached hospital was completed in December 1981, and the official opening was in 1983 according the Presidential Decree No. 58.