ISBER and the Biobanking and Cohort Network (BCNet): A Strengthened Partnership

A Review of Regulatory Frameworks Governing Biobanking in the Low and Middle Income Member Countries of BCNet

Biomedical research based on the sharing and use of ever larger volumes of samples and data is increasingly becoming an essential component of scientific discovery. The success of biobanking and genomic research is dependent on the broad sharing of resources for use by investigators. However, important ethical challenges need to be addressed for the sample and data sharing to be successful. Despite low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) carrying a higher burden of disease, biomedical research conducted to date has mainly focused on high-income countries. In order for LMICs to benefit from the advances in such research, normative documents (such as laws and guidelines) play a significant role in allowing LMIC projects to partake and be represented in global biomedical research. The administration and management of the ethical aspects of biobanking, including informed consent, are key components in ensuring that samples and data can legally and ethically be used and shared. As part of its support to the LMIC biobanks, the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) established a biobank and population cohort building network (BCNet) in 2013 with the aims of providing support (including education and training) and facilitating the development and improvement of biobanking infrastructure in LMICs. A comparative analysis of the laws and guidelines in BCNet countries was completed to highlight some of the ethical and legal issues related to biobanking in LMICs and to identify examples of effective systems of governance already in operation.

Ten Years of the Cohort Biobank: Bibliometric Outcomes

Background: Cohort studies with biobanks that use strict quality standards are essential requirements, not only for the development of new diagnostic and prognostic markers, but also for improving the understanding of pathophysiology of disease development, which have drawn an increasing amount of attention over the past decades. However, a bibliometric analysis of the global research on cohort biobanks is rare. The objective of this study was to evaluate the origin, current trend, and research hotspots of cohort biobanks. Materials and Methods: We searched the Web of Science Core Collection (WoSCC) with "biobank" and "cohort" as the topic words to retrieve English language articles published from 2009 to 2018. The CiteSpace 5.5.R2 was used to perform the cooperation network analysis, key words co-occurrence and burst detection analysis, and reference co-citation analysis. Results: The number of publications on cohort biobanks has increased over the past decade. Tai Hing Lam from the Department of Community Medicine, University of Hong Kong, was found to be the most productive researcher in this field. The percentage of publications in England (38.30%) was the highest all over the world. Risk, biobank, meta-analysis, cohort, disease, and so on were the most frequent keywords. Metabolic syndrome was the strongest burst keyword in this field, followed by Hong Kong, Guangzhou biobank cohort and personalized medicine. Moreover, of all the references for 932 articles included in the study, the article titled "UK biobank: an open access resource for identifying the causes of a wide range of complex diseases of middle and old age" published in PLoS Med by Sudlow et al., was the most frequently co-cited reference in this field. The largest cluster was labeled as Guangzhou biobank cohort study. Conclusions: This study provides an insight into cohort biobanks and the valuable information for biobankers to identify new perspectives on potential collaborators and cooperative countries/territories.

Biobanking in the COVID-19 Era and Beyond: Part 2. A Set of Tool Implementation Case Studies

The COVID-19 era has brought about a number of novel challenges for the global biobanking community. An array of diverse tools (e.g., standards, best practices, and plans) exists to support quality and fitness-for-purpose in biobank operations. The International Society for Biological and Environmental Repositories (ISBER) COVID-19 Response Task Force has set out to identify needs and gaps in these tools and make recommendations for the next generation of available tools, having closely examined the COVID-19-related challenges. While conducting this work to examine the relationships between tools and biobank adaptability, a subgroup of the task force conducted a parallel effort to develop and describe individual COVID-19 era case studies based on a number of operating biobanks. Each case study presents a different combination of implemented tools. Observations and lessons learned from these case studies are provided, and experiences with tool implementation are discussed. This information is supplemented by data relating to tool usefulness that was obtained through an ISBER survey discussed in a companion article. The knowledge gained from this study will be combined with other task force efforts to make recommendations to better position the biobanking community in their response to future emergencies.