Biobanking
Biobanking are collection of biological materials, e.g., blood and tissue samples, linked with personal and clinical data from the donors. Using such collections in combination with ‘omics’ technologies and other sources of data allows finding associations between the genome, environment and the appearance, course, and treatment success of diseases. Biobanks are therefore an important cornerstone for Personalized Health and a prerequisite for data-driven personalized medicine.
Many excellent biobanks with high quality biospecimens and data exist at the various institutes and department. A Hamilton Biobanking is currently being set up at the University Hospital of Basel for collections of biological materials linked to personal and clinical data from the donors.
While the size, nature of the biological material, and the purpose of collection largely differ between different biobanks, they all have in common the need for suitable infrastructure and standards for collecting, processing, storing, and using the biospecimens while honoring the increasingly complex ethical, legal, and societal challenges. An IT solution enabling a harmonized administration and linkage of the existing biospecimens with various data sources is a fundamental prerequisite for making the collected samples usable for both research and healthcare.
PHB focuses on the following aspects:
- Set up and maintenance of an IT solution enabling a harmonized administration and linkage of the existing biospecimens with various data sources and between the different institutional biobanks (USB, UKBB, UPK, Swiss TPH) in an ethical, legal and societal-compliant manner.
- Synchronize the local biobanking strategy and its implementation with the Swiss Biobanking Platform (SBP) to enable accessibility of the biobank catalogue
