Organization of BBMRI.pl: The Polish Biobanking Network

Abstract

In Poland storage of human biological samples takes place at most universities and scientific institutions conducting research projects in the field of biomedicine. The First International Biobanking Conference organized by the Ministry of Science and Higher Education in 2014 shed a light on the situation of Polish biobanking infrastructures. The country has around 40 large biorepositories, which store unique biological material such as whole brains, muscle fibers from patients with rare diseases, as well as thousands of samples from patients with lifestyle diseases. There are only two population-based biobanks working locally and several disease-oriented biobanks specializing mainly in oncological diseases. Consortium BBMRI.pl created plans for establishing a Polish Network of Biobanks, with national node which meets standards for biobanks and cooperation to guarantee development of biomedical sciences and international collaboration between Poland and other countries. The Polish network will enhance research activities, due to better visibility of samples and data that are stored in the national biobanking catalogue. However, it requires more than a comprehensive understanding of all benefits. The list of examples of benefits can be presented as follows: (i) a reduction of the duration and cost of clinical trials and subsequent time to market for anticancer drugs; (ii) more precise patient diagnosis and the associated impact on treatment and lower healthcare costs for providers, individuals, and the nation; (iii) improvements in research experiment time frames and data efficiencies; (iv) convergence to an industry standards for biospecimen quality; (v) optimization of capital infrastructure and IT technology.

Large-scale genome-wide association meta-analysis of endometriosis reveals 13 novel loci and genetically-associated comorbidity with other pain conditions

“…A formal consent was issued by the Bioethical Committee of the Institute of the Polish Mother’s Memorial Hospital in Lodz (Approval number, 98/2015). As a control group we enrolled to the study 2934 DNA samples from POPULOUS collection of the Biobank Lab, Department of Molecular Biophysics, University of Lodz [14, 42, 43]. These samples were derived from unrelated women, who had declared themselves as a healthy, with no evidence of current endometriosis disease stage.…”

Quality Management System in the BBMRI.pl Consortium: Status Before the Formation of the Polish Biobanking Network

“…3) were analyzed in six Polish biobanks and biorepositories from the BBMRI.pl Con-sortium. 4 During the preliminary audit of each biobank among the analyzed 13 main areas, 27 deviations were identified (Table 1). For each biobank an audit report with recommendations for the QMS implementation or improvement has been prepared.…”

“…This will provide easier access to patient consent and generate a larger supply of samples in the future and more understanding toward the development and use of modern therapies resulting from such scientific work. 4 At present, there is no legal obligation to launch International Organization for Standardization (ISO)-related standards in EU biobanks (i.e. : ISO 9001, ISO 27001, ISO 14001), 5 so quality requirements need to be self-imposed by an independent organization such as BBMRI-ERIC and other entities.…”

“…3 and to show the importance of quality management to the present and future members/observers of the PBN. 4 The lack of proper QMS in biobanks may result in inadequate quality of the biological samples. This was also noticed by Litton, who claims that provenance information, which keeps track of the history of biological material and data, is a fundamental component in reproducibility and reliability of the biological samples.…”

Ethical practice in medicine: a review

“…Pessimistic healthcare providers usually use persuasive languages affecting their decisions without the full disclosure of detail enough information on diagnosis, physical examination, treatment risk, bene ts, and side effects, quali cation and professional achievement of treating physician, con dentiality, alternative opinion, the surgical procedure risks, the right to access medical record on request before asking patient's consent [31]. Healthcare services quality and the process should not be discriminatory and fair services should be provided equally irrespective of the patient's background [32].…”