Revealing the molecular basis of diseases will depend critically on the availability of well-documented, high quality biological samples from large numbers of patients and healthy persons, collected and made available by biobanks. Human biological samples, including associated medical and molecular data are key resources in unraveling genetic and environmental factors causing diseases and influencing their outcome. These resources are required for development of new solutions to improve prevention, diagnosis and treatment of diseases.
The pan-European Biobanking and Biomolecular Resources Research Infrastructure (BBMRI-ERIC) will further develop and provide access to these key resources in a quality controlled and ethically and legally compliant manner. Although BBMRI-ERIC is a European initiative much emphasis is placed on global cooperation and the development of globally harmonized biobanking-related processes and standards.
BBMRI-ERIC builds on OECD guidelines pertinent to biobanking and should become the European part of global biological resource centres network (GBRCN) as specified by OECD.
This seminar will present BBMRI-ERIC as well as several other leading biobanking initiatives in Europe and outside of Europe. Key measures to improve international collaboration and interoperability of biobanks will be discussed.
