10th National Biobanking Symposium: Networking With Large Research Initiatives Is Crucial for the Sustainability of Biobanks

Over the last ten years, biobanks have developed into efficient infrastructures for medical research - not least due to the innovative funding policy of the federal government and funding bodies, which recognized the importance of biobanking for excellent, reproducible research at an early stage. The Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) has invested heavily in the networking of biobanks in recent years - the German Biobank Alliance (GBA), which now comprises 37 sites, recently celebrated its fifth anniversary.

"Biobanking provides centralized infrastructures, particularly for collaboration in large research networks, and thus offers enormous opportunities for health research," says Kiehntopf.

The benefits of effective biobanking were particularly evident during the COVID-19 pandemic. For example, the National Pandemic Cohort Network (NAPKON) of the Network of University Medicine (NUM) collected around 420,000 biosamples from over 5,000 patients as part of three cohort studies, which are now being used to systematically analyze the long-term consequences of COVID-19.

In the Medical Informatics Initiative (MII), biosamples and patient data from routine care are to be utilized for research in the future. To do this, biobanks and data integration centers at university medical centers in Germany will be linked at a technical and regulatory level. For this, the project "Aligning Biobanking and DIC efficiently" (ABIDE_MI) was launched in May 2021, involving 24 university medical centers, the MII coordination office, and the GBN.

"Our aim for the future is for researchers in clinics to have a single point of contact in the form of a query and analysis portal that identifies patient cohorts and corresponding biosamples that are suitable for a particular research project and where they can apply to use the data and samples," explained Sebastian C. Semler, the TMF’s Managing Director and Head of the MII Coordination Centre.

For Quality in Biomedical Research

Funding organizations such as the German Research Foundation (DFG) are aware of the importance of biobanks for the quality of biomedical research projects. They are, therefore, committed to more sustainable biobanking.

"High-quality biobanking is an important prerequisite for reliable research results in medicine and biomedicine. In 2021, the Standing Senate Commission on Key Questions in Clinical Research published guidelines for applicants and reviewers that take this aspect into account alongside other quality-enhancing measures," said Dr Katja Hartig, Programme Director of the Life Sciences 3: Medicine Group at the German Research Foundation (DFG). "In addition, we endeavor to ensure that existing professional biobanks are used, and project-specific costs are applied for when advising applicants and in the planning phases of projects."

High-quality biobanking is an important prerequisite for reliable research results in medicine and biomedicine.

Prof Dr. Christopher Baum, Chairman of the BIH Board of Directors and Head of Translational Research at Charité - Universitätsmedizin, spoke out in favor of closer links between existing research initiatives and structures.

Baum emphasized at the biobank symposium: "For higher research quality, improved research efficiency, and measurable benefits for patients, we need stronger networking. We need a master plan of responsibilities in order to create a sustainable link between the world of biospecimens, the medical informatics initiative, and other relevant national and international infrastructures." High-quality biobanking is an important prerequisite for reliable research results in medicine and biomedicine. In 2021, the Standing Senate Commission on Key Questions in Clinical Research published guidelines for applicants and reviewers that take this aspect into account alongside other quality-enhancing measures," said Dr Katja Hartig, Programme Director of the Life Sciences 3: Medicine Group at the German Research Foundation (DFG). "In addition, we endeavor to ensure that existing professional biobanks are used, and project-specific costs are applied for when advising applicants and in the planning phases of projects."

With this in mind, GBN Director Prof. Dr. Michael Hummel would like to see "coordinated networking, standardization, harmonization, and further development of existing infrastructures. In this way, the potential of the GBN and the Biobank Alliance could be further unlocked and developed, links with patient data could be established, and the long-term utilization of samples could be ensured."  

Increasing Importance of European Networking

On a European level, biobanks have been networking since 2013 in the European network BBMRI-ERIC. Around 700 biobanks from 23 European member states and the World Health Organisation (WHO) are connected via the BBMRI portal and enable the pan-European exchange of biosamples and data that strengthen medical research.

"Germany has intensively supported and actively helped shape BBMRI-ERIC from the very beginning. Within this network, the GBN, GBA, and TMF play a pioneering role at the European level," emphasized Prof. Dr. Jens Habermann, Director General of BBMRI-ERIC. This engagement in European infrastructure development will become even more important in the future in light of the European Health Data Space planned by the EU Commission for the utilization of medical data for research.

Press Contact

Wiebke Lesch (TMF e.V.)
Phone: +49 30 2200 24731
Mobile: +49 177 2663257
E-mail: presse@tmf-ev.de 
Twitter: @tmf_eV

Verena Huth (German Biobank Node)
Phone: +49 30 450 536 354
E-mail: verena.huth@charite.de 
Twitter: @bbmri_de

About the German Biobank Node (GBN)

The German Biobank Node is the umbrella organization of academic biobanks in Germany. Under the leadership of GBN, 37 biobank locations and an IT development center work together to make human biosamples and corresponding data available nationally and internationally for biomedical research. The Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) funds the work of GBN, which is supported by the German Cancer Research Centre Heidelberg (DKFZ) in the area of IT, as well as the BioMaterialBank Heidelberg (BMBH), and the Integrated Biobank Jena (IBBJ) in the area of quality management. GBN represents the interests of German biobanks in the European biobank network BBMRI-ERIC.