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IN THIS ISSUE
Editorial 2 Conference report from Graz 3 Swedish quality registries 6 News In Brief 7 Cytology biobank Umeå 8 News In Brief 9 Pre-analytical variables 10 Upcoming events 11
#10 October 2013
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Editorial
by Jan-Eric Litton, BBMRI.se/Karolinska Institutet
The Future
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o share human biological samples, associated data and results across disease-specific and population-based human research, biobanks are becoming increasingly important to understand disease development and translation. Ethical and legal frameworks governing consent that dissuade cross-domain data sharing is also becoming increasingly important due to the fact that research doesn’t stay within national borders. Millions of human biological samples and associated data are stored and constitute essential resources for biomedical researchers interested in accessing large and valuable datasets needed to study complex disease aetiology, improve diagnostics, and advance the agenda of personalized medicine. Here Sweden has a big role to play in the new structure of BBMRI ERIC. Sweden is now an important part of one of the largest, if not the largest, infrastructure in medicine – BBMRI ERIC. Founding members are Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Estonia, France, Germany, Greece, Malta, Netherlands and Sweden, official observers are Norway, Poland, Switzerland and Turkey (non EU members). I have been appointed Director General for BBMRI ERIC and will start my work in the beginning of 2014 with my headquarters in Graz Austria. BBMRI ERIC is still not a legal entity but if everything goes according to plan we might expect a decision by the European Commission by the end of November this year. You can read more on page 3.
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n a national level we have now been operating the Swedish Research Councils largest infrastructure in medicine; BBMRI.se nearly four years. We have learned a lot during this period and are now ready for the next step. By the board of BBMRI.se I have been appointed to give an outline of how we would like to operate this
biobank infrastructure from 2015 to 2020. A first report will be at the end of this year. This process will start with different kind of meetings with the work-package leaders, the newly appointed nodeleaders from the medical faculties, the board of BBMRI.se, county hospitals, the leadership of the different medical faculties and the users that are the main targets for the infrastructure. We will likely still have a work-package structure for internal use, but focus will lie on what service we can provide. We will do our best to promote a structure that will give different kinds of services to help promote excellence in medical research. This autumn we have also started webinars about biobank issues that are important for different stakeholders. You can read more about them on our webpage www.bbmri.se
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enomics and next-generation sequencing technology have revolutionized the biomedical research field. The advent of Cloud computing has resulted in access to a wide range of services, one of those are PaaS (Platform-as-a-Service), work that we are conducting in the EU project BiobankCloud. Our PaaS framework will be designed to run primarily on private cloud platforms. Such platforms can be integrated to nextgeneration sequencing machines and directly stores sequenced data as well as provide platform services for the analysis of sequence data, as well as the interconnection of biobanks for data sharing. We will present this during the HandsOn: Biobanking 21-22 November at the World Forum, The Hague, The Netherlands.
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ee you in The Hague!
Conference report from Graz, Austria 16-18 of September 2013
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Long-term investments in biobanking by the EC and by the National Research Councils
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n the 16th of September the inauguration of BBMRI ERIC took place in Graz, Austria. Close to three hundred people from the international biobanking community, representatives from the European Commission and the Austrian government gathered at Alte Universität. In addition, the new Director General of BBMRI ERIC, Prof Jan-Eric Litton from BBMRI.se/Sweden, was announced.
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uring the official inauguration ceremony of BBMRI ERIC, Wolfgang Burtscher, representative DG Research and Innovation, explained the rationale behind joining forces in biobanking on a European level. Europe harbors numerous biobanks across diseases, populations and everyday healthcare. However to realize the potential of these collections and move into the era of personalized medicine, a critical mass Photo: Erik Bongcam-Rudloff of knowledge and resources for big science/ data needs to take shape.
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everal speakers adressed the road from biobanking network to ERIC legal status. From an early stage the European Commission showed willingness to fund a European-wide biobanking research infrastructure. Purely intergovernmental collaboration was regarded as taking too long, and therefore BBMRI was organized on EU-level. BBMRI was the first infrastructure project in the ESFRI (European Strategy Forum on Research Infrastructures) roadmap preparatory phase,
launched in 2008. When the preparatory phase ended in 2011 there was a silent phase on EUlevel during almost two years. During this time however activities in national nodes of BBMRI kept growing.
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he application for ERIC legal status was sent in July 2013, and has now been approved and will come into full operation as beginning of 2014. ERIC stands for European Research Infrastructure Consortium and is a recent governance tool adopted by the European Commission, to make long-term research investments. The ERIC status will be a legal personality accepted in all EU countries and as such open up for dialogue with the research councils of the member states and their long-term financial support. ERIC can also benefit from VAT and excise duty exemptions similar to those of international organisations. In addition, the flexible legal status of ERIC will allow participation of non-European countries.
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BMRI ERIC is the largest infrastructure in medical research launched in Europe. So far, two more ERIC infrastructures have been approved, CLARIN-ERIC in humanities and social science research and SHARE-ERIC in aging research.
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he founding members of BBMRI ERIC as of October 2013 are Austria, Belgium, Czechoslovakia, Estonia, France, Germany, Greece, Malta, Netherlands, Sweden, while Norway, Poland, Switzerland and Turkey are observers. During
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the inauguration ceremony, node representatives signed the BBMRI ERIC sculpture that will welcome visitors at the central executive management office in Graz.
A total of 500 m2 is reserved for the management of BBMRI ERIC.
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rof Litton presented the work so far within the Swedish node and a tentative program for BBMRI ERIC was discussed. The aim of BBMRI ERIC will be to establish, operate and develop a distributed pan-European biobanking research infrastructure, for example by providing a set of common services to researchers.
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rof Jan-Eric Litton will lead the executive management. At present he is the designated Director General of BBMRI until the legal instrument ERIC is launched. The office will be set up in 6th floor in a new building, Center for Knowledge and Technology Transfer in Medicine, in Graz.
Photo: Erik Bongcam-Rudloff
by Ulla Rudsander, BBMRI.se/Karolinska Institutet
BBMRI-LPC forum
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he BBMRI LPC (Large Prospective Cohorts) project is an EU-funded (4-year project) follow on to the preparatory phase BBMRI, which concluded in 2011, and runs parallel to the BBMRI ERIC (European Research Infrastructure Consortium) which has been granted its own independent legal status. In mid-September, both BBMRI ERIC and BBMRI LPC held meeting days (an inauguration day and a forum meeting respectively) in Graz, Austria, where the aims of each project were presented.
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ne aim of BBMRI LPC is to create a platform for transferring the expertise of established European large-scale biobanks to new biobank initiatives under development in other countries. To achieve this goal, the annual BBMRI LPC Forum meeting was organised. The meeting attracted 152 participants from 34 countries, including also a number of non-European countries (Argentina, Australia, Canada, China, and United States). Eastern European/emerging biobanking countries represented were Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Estonia, Faroe Islands, Hungary, Ireland, Israel, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland,
Portugal, Serbia, Turkey and Ukraine.
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he LPC forum programme of the day was introduced by Kurt Zatloukal (Medical University of Graz, Austria) and Eero Vuorio (Biocenter Finland) who laid out the background to European biobanking initiatives and who have both played major roles in establishing BBMRI and the ERIC. The LPC project was described by the coordinator, Markus Perola (University of Helsinki, Finland). Its objectives are to improve and enable access to biobanked samples, standardize procedures for sample collection, storage and utilization, establish Expert Centers which can provide data to industry, and allow integrated research across different cohorts by independent investigators. He described the management structure and the 10 work packages, dealing with aspects such as transnational access to samples, privatepublic partnerships with industry, interactions with Eastern European biobanks, establishing standard research methods for key techniques, and training and outreach activities. He explained the three main pillars of BBMRI LPC, namely direct access to unique sample collections and asso-
ciated health information, access to data derived by analysis of these samples by omics technologies, and access to know-how on establishing large prospective cohorts by on-site training. Under the heading of Innovation, he described the “BBMRI Expert Centres” which will bridge the gap between public and industry interests and will be established as not-forprofit organisations to perform pre-competitive primary data generation from human biological samples.
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his was followed by a talk from JanEric Litton (Karolinska Institutet, Sweden) on the BBMRI-ERIC, for which he has recently been appointed the Photo: Erik Bongcam-Rudloff Director General, and he also introduced the Swedish node, BBMRI.se. Other national nodes represented were those for Estonia (Andres Metspalu, Tartu University), Greece (Sissy Kolyva, Institute Pasteur) and The Netherlands (Gert-Jan van Ommen, Leiden University Medical Center). The Estonian biobank is a training centre for the new establishing biobanks
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in Eastern Europe. BBMRI.nl facilitates collaboration by coordination of the Dutch biobanks, including data management and analysis and dialogue about legal and ethical aspects.
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he theme of training and enlargement of the biobanking community towards Eastern Europe was taken up by Andres Metspalu and Markus Pasterk (International Prevention Research Institute, Lyon, France). The main tasks are to coordinate training for the emerging biobanks in Europe, most notably those in Eastern Europe, which are under-represented in the European biobanking network developed during the BBMRI preparatory phase, and to facilitate collaboration with emerging biobanks. The day concluded with a lively question and answer session with the audience, followed by a visit to the ultra-modern biobank facilities at the Medical University of Graz. More detailed information about BBMRI LPC can be found at: http://www.bbmri-lpc.org/.
by Joakim Galli & Mike Taussig BBMRI.se/Uppsala University
Second International Biobanking Summit - Future Directions The second day was dedicated to second International Biobanking Summit II. The Summit provided a forum for discussion and priority setting, and it was co-organized by BioSHaRE.EU, P3G, ISBER, ESBB, BBMRI LPC and BBMRI ERIC. The main issues discussed at the summit were related to “Biobanks as Bridges between Research and Health Care” and “Does “Big” Science mean “Big” ELSI?”
The summit was well attended and more detailed information can be found at: https://www.bioshare. eu/content/second-international-biobanking-summit by Erik Bongcam-Rudloff, BBMRI.se/Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
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Biobank information
by Bertil Lindahl, Uppsala Clinical Research center and department of Medical Sciences, Uppsala University
Swedish quality registries – a unique, but underused, tool for research
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weden has a long history of registering data on health, originating several hundred years ago when the cause of death started to be written down in the church records. The first modern national quality registry was started by orthopedic surgeons already 1975, the knee arthroplasty registry, followed by the hip arthroplasty registry 1979. In 2012 there were 73 certified national quality registries and 27 registry candidates.
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national quality registry is defined as a registry that contains individualized data concerning patient problems, medical interventions, and outcomes after treatment; within all healthcare production; and which is annually monitored and approved for financial support by an Executive Committee with members from the government and the county councils.
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he aim of a national quality registry is to constitute an over-all knowledge system that is actively used on all levels for continuous learning, quality improvement and management of all healthcare services. Thus, research - the systematic search for answers to unanswered questions - is an important part of the purpose of a quality registry. The national quality registries are increasingly used for research purposes, the number of published articles in peer reviewed scientific journals based partly or completely on data from the 73 certified registries increased from 124 to 174, an increase by 40 %, between 2009 and 2011. The goal is to increase the number of articles from 2009 by 300 % to 2016. In contrast to a decade ago, several of the articles are published in the most highly ranked clinical journals like New England Journal of Medicine, the Lancet and JAMA. However, the number of published articles is unevenly distributed be-
tween the registries, and still a high proportion of registries are not used for research at all.
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he areas of research are broad: describing changes in prevalence, incidence and natural course of a disease, identifying risk factors for a disease, studying short- and long-term effects of a treatment, identifying rare side effects of a treatment, health economic studies and comparison of different treatments. The possibility to merge data from a quality registry with data from one or several of the mandatory registries hosted by the National Board of Health and Welfare, like the National Patient Register, Cause of Death Register, Cancer Register and Drug Prescription Register or with data from Statistics Sweden (SCB) give us in Sweden unique advantages in this kind of research.
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here are some trends in contemporary quality registry research that deserve to be highlighted and which may give Sweden possibilities to provide world class research. Firstly, Registry Randomized Controlled Trials (RRCT) is a new concept, trying to combine the advantages of a traditional Randomized Controlled Trials (RCTs) and observational studies. Correctly designed RCTs are, and will continue to be, the gold standard for comparative clinical trials as they extinguish confounding. However, RCTs have some shortcomings and RCTs as the sole source of evidence in health care is therefore problematic. They are often limited by including selected populations and they are very expensive to perform and without commercial incentives for industry the evaluation of many potentially important therapeutic strategies and medical devices will not be undertaken. Observational studies using data from registries are on the other hand inexpensive, relatively simple to perform and often
reflect the true clinical situation. However, they have limited value for comparisons between therapeutic options due to known or concealed confounding that cannot be adequately adjusted for. With the use of a randomization procedure within a clinical quality registry it is possible to combine some of the most important features of a prospective randomized trial with those of a large scale clinical registry including an inexpensive, unselective consecutive enrollment of large number of patients. Two large RRCTs have been performed in Swedish quality registries, one in the Scandinavian Obesity Surgery Register randomizing 2500 patients to two surgical techniques (still unpublished) and one in the SWEDEHEART registry (TASTE trial) randomizing 7200 patients, >60 % of available patients in Sweden, with acute myocardial infarction to either standard PCI or PCI combined with thrombus aspiration (N Engl J Med. 2013 Aug 31). The accompanying editorial to the latter study had the title: “The randomized Registry Trial – the Next Disruptive Technology in Clinical Research?” indicating the great potential for RRCTs in the future.
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econdly, the possibility to add biological information from analyses of samples in a biobank to clinical data in a quality registry, gives opportunities, e.g. to study interactions between genetic and environmental factors for developing
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disease or for evaluation of treatment effect in subgroups based on genetic or proteomic profiling. Therefore several registries have started collecting blood samples in addition to collecting clinical data in the registry or use samples (tissue or blood) already collected in routine clinical care. A good example of the potential of this approach is how researchers connected with the Reumatoid Arthritis (RA) registry have elucidated how genetic factors and an environmental factor (smoking) interact in the development of RA and for the respond to treatment with methotrexate and tumor necrosis factor inhibitors.
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he Quality Registry research faces several challenges: Firstly, the work on increasing the coverage as well of the completeness and correctness of data in the registries must continue, many registries still have a coverage that is too low; secondly, in order to take full advantage of the rich potential of the Quality Registries, the number of skilled researchers must increase, as well as the number of available statisticians, data managers and health economists; thirdly, to be used on a broad scale for surveillance of newly introduced drugs or medical devices, the collaboration with the industry must be developed and improved; fourthly, the funding of costly large scale studies using biobanks in combination with quality registries is unclear.
News In Brief Site visit from Denmark at cytology biobank On 28 of August 2013 The Swedish Cervical Cytology Biobank had a visit from Louise Thirstrup Thomsen and Christian Munk from the Danish Cancer Society. The visit was interesting and instructive for both parts, to learn about each other´s experiences with the biobank and in the field of cervical cancer. The Danish group was really impressed with the work the work package 3 (on clinical biobanks) has managed to build up in the National Cytology Biobank in such short time. During the day, Louise held a very interesting seminar about her research dealing with the screening of cervical cancer in Denmark.
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Clinical biobanking
by Marko Korpela/Västerbotten County Council (VLL)
Implementation of cytology biobank at Norrland University Hospital in Umeå
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n October 1, 2012 the Västerbotten County Council (Västerbottens Läns Landsting, VLL) began using liquid-based cytology for vaginal specimens. Since the pathology department at Östersund Hospital is conducted through Laboratory Medicine in VLL, the samples are sent from Jämtland County Council (Jämtlands Läns Landsting, JLL) to Umeå for the sample management. The volume of samples for these two counties is approximately 30,000 samples per year and includes samples from screening tests and induced samples.
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dinator for the national method of biobanking in clinical cytology (in work package 3). Nasrin then visited Umeå and discussions about setting up a cytology biobank, using the standardized methods from the work package 3, started. The issue was then discussed in VLL, and the decision to a start a collaboration and use the BBMRI.se standard for setting up a cytology biobank was made.
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hen the planning of implementing robotic systems and LIMS in Umeå was initiated, under the leadership of Nasrin. On August 19, the installation of the robot from Tecan started, and the day after it was time for the installation of a cytology-LIMS from Labware. During the following week the staff was trained in using the robot and taught how the LIMS works, and also how the systems communicate with each The first biobanked samples in Umeå 2013-08-28 by Camilla Engman and other.
here have been discussions on biobanking these samples primarily for clinical purposes but also for the potential use in research and development. It was decided that the samples are to be stored in Biobank Norr, with operations conducted through LaboratoMarko Korpela. ry Medicine (Laboratoriemedicin), and Biobank Norr was assigned to find solutions for this. Since the sample volume is enormous, the need for acquiring automation to secure the handling process of all samples was discussed. Biobank Norr has been in contact with BBMRI.se and the work package on handling the national network (work package 6), but were told to get in contact with Nasrin Perskvist, the national coor-
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asrin also held a training course at Biobank Norr on the operation and handling of the samples. The course also included instructions on how to verify the cell yield of the process. On August 28 the Cytology Biobank at Umeå University Hospital opened and started its operations.
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ight now there is an ongoing dialogue within Region Norr, which consists of the counties of Västerbotten, Jämtland, Norrbotten and Västernorrland, on centralizing the biobanking of all liquid-based cytology samples to Umeå. This means more than a doubling of the volume of samples to Biobanken Norr. Questions regarding logistics and labeling of samples first have to be solved, an issue between the above mentioned counties. If all goes according to the plan, all samples from Västernorrland and Norrbotten will be biobanked in Umeå during 2014.
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Attendance of the installation: Nasrin Perskvist, National Coordinator, BBMRI.se Jørgen Melhus, Application Specialist, Tecan
Nordic AB
Mark Gonzales, Site Manage,r Labware Camilla Engman, Leg BMA, Biobanken Norr Anna Knuts Naudot, Leg BMA, Biobanken Norr Marko Korpela, Process engineer, Laboratory Medicine, VLL
News In Brief International Biobank & Cohort Network (BCNet) The first meeting of the International Biobank & Co- activities, such as the ISBER (International Society hort Network (BCNet) was held at WHO/IARC in of Biological & Environmental Repositories), ESBB Lyon, France 26-27 of August 2013. (the regional branch pof ISBER for Europe, Middel East & Africa), P3G and of course BBMRI-ERIC The health and welfare development of a country (represented by the new Director General Jan-Eric is closely tied to its scientific development. Build- Litton). After one and a half day of benchmarking ing the infrastructure for science is a straightforward presentations and break-out group discussions, the approach to promote scientific development in the meeting agreed on the principles of a joint way formedical area. To this end the WHO cancer control agency IARC (International Agency for Research on Cancer) has founded in international network of Biobanking facilities and Cohorts (BCNet), with focus on assisting the building of these infrastructures in Low and Middle Income Countries (LMIC). The meeting was hosted by the WHO/IARC Biobanking facility (IBB). IBB is one of the largest international biobanking facilities, storing samples from about 1.5 million individuals from 30 countries all over the world. Apart from the IARC participants, the BCNet meeting was attended by 25 participants representing 20 countries in all the WHO regions (Asia-Pacific, Africa, Europe, Middle East & Pan-American) and representative of major international biobanking
ward and asked Joakim Dillner to assemble an interim Steering Committee. The committee will have a one-year assignment to work out the details of how the BCNet will be working for the future and will also perform a limited number of short-term pilot projects to demonstrate the mutual benefit of the BCNet.
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Biobank analysis
by Eva Ortega-Paíno, BBMRI.se/Lund University
Pre-analytical variables, still a curse for the development of personalized medicine
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oday, multiple scientific and technological advances are leading us closer and closer to the goal of personalized medicine. Even so, there are still factors that could result in physicians making wrong decisions and/or diagnoses. Some of these elements, known as pre-analytical variables, occur in laboratory praxis and may account for up to 70% of total laboratory errors. A general way to define pre-analytical variables is as the variations that can occur between the extraction of the sample and its analysis. However, a more detailed classification could involve: on the one hand, those that occur in the lab, or in vitro variables (hemolysis, incorrect patient identification, clotted specimens, and delays in transport, as well as improper handling and inappropriate storage), and on
Fig.1: Classification of pre-analytical variables based on in vitro and/or in vivo factors
the other, those that occur outside the lab, or in vivo variables (patient condition, habitat, axenic state, fasting/non-fasting status, etc.) (Fig.1)
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hese variables or errors can affect the outcome of procedures from a basic blood test to more complex gene or proteome profiling experiments. Such pre-analytical errors have a substantial economic impact, not only in research, but also in clinical practice, where the concomitant variations can lead to medical errors. This could translate into longer hospital stays, as well as exposing the patient to risk of harm.
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aking all this into account, there is a pressing need to control variables and correct errors that might interfere with the molecular analysis or diagnosis, errors which are due to variables unrelated to the disease under study. Biospecimen Research, a field which, though not new, is certainly highly relevant, sets out to assess all the pre-analytical variables that could affect the result of an analysis without being related to intrinsic sample differences. It is of great scientific interest to develop standard operating protocols for improving harmonization and development. Once this has been achieved, comparisons between different groups working with similar approaches will be possible, leading to better knowledge not only about biospecimen quality control markers, but also about potential clinical biomarkers for routine usage.
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ithin BBMRI.se, we provide advice and support to researchers via the development of an online consultation platform with up-to-date literature on pre-analytical variables and their implications for molecular analysis. To achieve this, we are currently gathering and
summarizing information from relevant research journals in this field. By using key words such as pre-analytical error/variable/variation, metabolite, or biospecimen quality control, we have collated a substantial body of articles and reviews that cover not only Biospecimen Research, but also literature regarding sample quality, storage conditions, type of collection, and so on.
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tegrated with the existing BBMRI.se databases MolMeth (Molecular Methods Database. www. molmeth.org), and BARC (Biobank Analysis Resource Catalogue. www.barcdb.org). MolMeth is an open protocol publishing system and BARC is a database intended for researchers who want to find the optimal service platforms for molecular analysis of their Biobank samples. (Fig.2)
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oreover, we e are conhave recently fident that undertaken a surthese efforts to vey, sent out to high develop an open throughput-screensource of knowling platforms, to edge on Biospeciinvestigate the men Research can minimum qualhelp scientists to ity sample required take into account a for DNA, RNA, prorange of variables teins and metabothat could affect the lites, as well as outcome of their Fig2: Mechanism of the the BBMRI.se databases sample format, volresearch projects, ume and other facnot only scientifically tors that could be involved in analysis outcomes. but also economically. By giving advice and supAll this information (survey results and literaport we will help to address these potential erture) is currently being summarized and adaptrors through the identification of pre-analytical ed to an easily accessible format usable for two variables that can bring about changes in for extypes of researcher: on the one hand, those who ample gene expression or protein levels but are would like to set up a new Biobank collection, and unrelated to the disease in question. This will ason the other, those who wish start new research sist the development of appropriate biomarkers projects using existing Biobank collections. that can improve both diagnosis and treatment.
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he new pre-analytical error consultation platform under development will also be in-
8 Nov at 13.00
Upcoming Events
biobank WEBINAR about Integrated Study Informatics System - ISIS. The sophisticated IT-infrastructure which forms the basis for studies LifeGene and EpiHealth will now become available for wider usage. The software and hardware that were originally designed to handle large scale studies will now be activated as a general platform for researchers to be used in their studies. BBMRI.se has taken on the mission to manage and maintain the systems as a service to the Swedish research community. Speakers: Prof Lars Lind, PI EpiHealth, Uppsala University and Eva Burén, BBMRIs.se, Head of IT at Karolinska Institutet Biobank. Register at http://bbmri.se/sv/Om-Oss/Kalenderhandelser/Webinar/.
Upcoming Events 14-15 Nov
Conference:”Personalized Prevention of Breast and Prostate Cancer”. The purpose of the conference is to highlight the possibilities and challenges around the main themes of Cancer Risk Prediction Center (CRisP) through keynotes, panel discussions and interactive audience sessions.
21-22 Nov
HandsOn: Biobanks, the interactive conference for everyone who has an interest in biobanking returns. This year the organisation of HandsOn: Biobanks lies in the hands of BBMRI-NL and the conference will be held in World Forum, The Hague, the Netherlands. The programme contains keynote talks, interactive workshops (Idea labs), educational sessions and an interactive exhibition better known as The Route. The main focus will be on future issues in biobanking.
27-28 Nov
The conference Joint Nordic Focus on Research Infrastructures - Looking to the Future will span a wide range of topics, all related to planned and existing large scale research facilities in the Nordic countries. It is aimed both at research leaders and policy makers. The focus will be on the joint efforts involved in these infrastructures, and how to facilitate and improve the modes of collaboration for them.
6 Dec
biobank WEBINAR about how biobanks and registries can be used within Research & Development. Speakers will be announced later.
>>Read more at bbmri.se/en/About-us/Events/
biobank SWEDEN is the newsletter of BBMRI.se (BioBanking and Molecular Resource Infrastructure of Sweden). BBMRI.se is part of the European biobanking infrastructure BBMRI and is funded by the Swedish Research Council.
BBMRI.se is chairing BBMRI Nordic, a NordForsk supported collaboration between the national biobanks in the Nordic countries. biobank SWEDEN is published four times per year.
To stay informed subscribe to
[email protected]. Also visit www.bbmri.se to find the newsletter as a pdf. Editorial board & lay-out: Sofie Petersson and Ulla Rudsander Publisher: Jan-Eric Litton
