The reconfiguration of biobanks in Europe under the BBMRI-ERIC framework: towards global sharing nodes?

Trust and Support for Cancer Research Biobanks: Insights from Cancer Patients in Poland

BACKGROUND Biobanks are legally regulated entities that acquire, store, prepare, preserve, test, analyze, and distribute defined biological material and related information and data from human sources. This study aimed to evaluate trust, support and willingness to donate personal data and tissue samples for biobanking from cancer patients attending oncology departments in Poznań, Poland. MATERIAL AND METHODS This study utilized data from questionnaire-based survey conducted from February to June 2023 among 548 patients from 2 Poznań hospitals equipped with oncology treatment units. The survey employed convenience sampling. Statistical analysis was carried out using JASP 0.18.3 and PQStat1.8.6., with significance levels set at 0.05. Descriptive statistics and logistic regression were utilized to present the results. RESULTS 92.2% of cancer patients supported the establishment of cancer research biobank in Poland, and 93.1% declared the willingness to share their cancer tissues for research purposes. Patients' willingness to donate was associated with biomedical research conducted by biobanks and types of biobank institutions. Most patients were willing to donate for research on cancer, genetic and autoimmune diseases or dementia, but were reluctant to participate in research on sexual identity, intelligence, aggression and for-profit research. Patients were willing to donate to biobanks managed by medical universities, public institutions, clinical hospitals and national biobanks but not to foreign and private biobanks. CONCLUSIONS Although patients' support for cancer biobank is high it is not unconditional as their willingness to participate in cancer-related research is associated with types of biomedical research conducted by biobanks and different types of biobank institutions.

Do biobanks need pharmacists? Support of pharmacy students to biobanking of human biological material for pharmaceutical research and development

Objectives

This study aimed to assess the biobank awareness among Polish pharmacy students and how it affects their support for biobank research.

Methods

A survey among 366 pharmacy students enrolled at two Polish medical universities: the Poznań University of Medical Sciences and Medical University of Lublin was conducted.

Results

Although most pharmacy students felt positivity about biobanking and expressed the willingness to donate their biospecimens for biomedical research, their awareness on research biobanks was low. Their willingness to participate was driven by the desire to benefit society, help advance science and develop new therapies. While students supported donation for most types of research, biobanks run by medical universities were the highest trusted research institutions. The primary factors associated with student's willingness to participate were religiosity and place of study. Notably, nonreligious students and those studying in Poznan exhibited more favourable attitudes toward donating for research and expressed greater support for the establishment of research biobanks in Poland.

Conclusion

Since biobank awareness among future pharmacists is inadequate incorporating biobank competency domains into education and training of pharmacists is required.

Population-Based Biobanking

Population-based biobanking is an essential element of medical research that has grown substantially over the last two decades, and many countries are currently pursuing large national biobanking initiatives. The rise of individual biobanks is paralleled by various networking activities in the field at both the national and international level, such as BBMRI-ERIC in the EU. A significant contribution to population-based biobanking comes from large cohort studies and national repositories, including the United Kingdom Biobank (UKBB), the CONSTANCES project in France, the German National Cohort (NAKO), LifeLines in the Netherlands, FinnGen in Finland, and the All of Us project in the U.S. At the same time, hospital-based biobanking has also gained importance in medical research. We describe some of the scientific questions that can be addressed particularly well by the use of population-based biobanks, including the discovery and calibration of biomarkers and the identification of molecular correlates of health parameters and disease states. Despite the tremendous progress made so far, some major challenges to population-based biobanking still remain, including the need to develop strategies for the long-term sustainability of biobanks, the handling of incidental findings, and the linkage of sample-related and sample-derived data to other relevant resources.

Building a rheumatology biobank for reliable basic/translational research and precision medicine

Research biobanks are non-profit structures that collect, manipulate, store, analyze and distribute systematically organized biological samples and data for research and development purposes. Over the recent years, we have established a biobank, the Rheumatology BioBank (RheumaBank) headed by the Medicine and Rheumatology unit of the IRCCS Istituto Ortopedico Rizzoli (IOR) in Bologna, Italy for the purpose of collecting, processing, storing, and distributing biological samples and associated data obtained from patients suffering from inflammatory joint diseases. RheumaBank is a research biobank, and its main objective is to promote large-scale, high-quality basic, translational, and clinical research studies that can help elucidate pathogenetic mechanisms and improve personalization of treatment choice in patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA), psoriatic arthritis (PsA) and other spondyloarthritides (SpA).

Infrastructuring European scientific integration: Heterogeneous meanings of the European biobanking infrastructure BBMRI-ERIC

While transnational research infrastructure projects long preceded the formal integration process that created the European Union, their advancement is an increasingly central part of EU research policy and of European integration in general. This paper analyses the Biobanking and Biomolecular Resources Research Infrastructure-European Research Infrastructure Consortium (BBMRI-ERIC) as a recent example of institutionalized scientific collaboration in Europe that has formally been established as part of EU science policy. BBMRI-ERIC, a network of European biobanks, is expected to contribute to both European science and European integration. Yet its achievements in these domains are interpreted differently by various actors involved. This paper draws on STS conceptualizations of infrastructures as relational, experimental, and promissory assemblages. These support the formulation of a working definition of research infrastructures that in turn helps to explore the heterogeneous meanings attributed to BBMRI-ERIC. The paper describes the creation of this distributed European research infrastructure, and divergent understandings of what it means for BBMRI-ERIC to be distributed, to be European and to be a research infrastructure. This analysis demonstrates how building a research infrastructure is also an effort to define what it means to be European-a process in which what is European about science and what science can do for Europe is continuously (re-)imagined, contested and negotiated.

To donate or not to donate? Future healthcare professionals' opinions on biobanking of human biological material for research purposes

BACKGROUND

Over the last few decades biobanks have been recognised as institutions that may revolutionise biomedical research and the development of personalised medicine. Poland, however, still lacks clear regulations regarding the running of biobanks and the conducting of biomedical research. While the awareness of the general public regarding biobanks is low, healthcare professions and medical students also lack basic knowledge regarding biobanks, and such ignorance may affect their support for biobanks.

METHODS

This study is aimed at assessing the knowledge and attitudes of future healthcare professionals towards the donation of human biological material for research purposes and is based on a sample of 865 Polish medical students at Poznań University of Medical Sciences.

RESULTS

This research has shown that the awareness of medical students' regarding biobanks is low. It has also shown that while the majority of future healthcare professionals enrolled in this study supported the idea of biobank research and declared themselves willing to donate, still many students felt ambivalent about the biobanking of human biological material for research purposes and expressed concerns over biobanking research. While the primarily motivation to participate in biobank research was the desire to help advance science and to develop innovative therapies, the most common reason for a refusal was the fear that the government, insurance companies or employers, might have access to the samples. Concerns over unethical use of samples and data safety were also prevalent. More than half of students opted for a study-specific model of consent and only a few opted for broad consent.

CONCLUSIONS

This research suggests that a lack of knowledge about biobanks, their role and activities may affect medical students' support for biobanks and their active participation in the collection and management of biospecimens for research purposes. Since in the future medical, nursing and pharmacy students will be involved in the collection, storage, testing and analysis of biospecimens from their patients, medical students in all professional fields should be trained regarding the concept, purposes and operational procedures of biobanks, as well as the ethical, legal and social implications of biobank research.

Evolution of biobanks and ethical governance for the emerging applications in biomedical research

The establishment of a biobank and effective utilization of the biological resources comes with lot of challenges which require operating processes and effective governance structure with public awareness. As biobank is an evolving field of data driven health-care research, guided strategies in line with the national and international statutory body regulations is important. A trustworthy governance is paramount in developing a sustainable way of establishing, maintaining and successful functioning of a biobank. This paper highlights the structure of biobank governance, challenges and processes of effective integration of governance strategies.

Study protocol for the St James's Hospital, Tallaght University Hospital, Trinity College Dublin Allied Researchers' (STTAR) Bioresource for COVID-19

Background: The current coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic began in Ireland with the first confirmed positive case in March 2020. In the early stages of the pandemic clinicians and researchers in two affiliated Dublin hospitals identified the need for a COVID-19 biobanking initiative to support and enhance research into the disease. Through large scale analysis of clinical, regional, and genetic characteristics of COVID-19 patients, biobanks have helped identify, and so protect, at risk patient groups The STTAR Bioresource has been created to collect and store data and linked biological samples from patients with SARS-CoV-2 infection and healthy and disease controls. Aim: The primary objective of this study is to build a biobank, to understand the clinical characteristics and natural history of COVID-19 infection with the long-term goal of research into improved disease understanding, diagnostic tests and treatments. Methods: This is a prospective dual-site cohort study across two tertiary acute university teaching hospitals. Patients are recruited from inpatient wards or outpatient clinics. Patients with confirmed COVID-19 infection as well as healthy and specific disease control groups are recruited.  Biological samples are collected and a case report form detailing demographic and medical background is entered into the bespoke secure online Dendrite database. Impact: The results of this study will be used to inform national and international strategy on health service provision and disease management related to COVID-19. In common with other biobanks, study end points  evolve over time as new research questions emerge. They currently include patient survival, occurrence of severe complications of the disease or its therapy, occurrence of persistent symptoms following recovery from the acute illness and vaccine responses.

Integrating data from multiple Finnish biobanks and national health-care registers for retrospective studies: Practical experiences

Aim: This case study aimed to investigate the process of integrating resources of multiple biobanks and health-care registers, especially addressing data permit application, time schedules, co-operation of stakeholders, data exchange and data quality. Methods: We investigated the process in the context of a retrospective study: Pharmacogenomics of antithrombotic drugs (PreMed study). The study involved linking the genotype data of three Finnish biobanks (Auria Biobank, Helsinki Biobank and THL Biobank) with register data on medicine dispensations, health-care encounters and laboratory results. Results: We managed to collect a cohort of 7005 genotyped individuals, thereby achieving the statistical power requirements of the study. The data collection process took 16 months, exceeding our original estimate by seven months. The main delays were caused by the congested data permit approval service to access national register data on health-care encounters. Comparison of hospital data lakes and national registers revealed differences, especially concerning medication data. Genetic variant frequencies were in line with earlier data reported for the European population. The yearly number of international normalised ratio (INR) tests showed stable behaviour over time. Conclusions: A large cohort, consisting of versatile individual-level phenotype and genotype data, can be constructed by integrating data from several biobanks and health data registers in Finland. Co-operation with biobanks is straightforward. However, long time periods need to be reserved when biobank resources are linked with national register data. There is a need for efforts to define general, harmonised co-operation practices and data exchange methods for enabling efficient collection of data from multiple sources.