Spain joins BBMRI-ERIC as Observer country!
We are delighted to announce that the Kingdom of Spain has been officially confirmed as an Observer in BBMRI-ERIC. Spain has joined the Biobanking and BioMolecular resources Research Infrastructure – European Research Infrastructure Consortium (BBMRI-ERIC) through its Assembly of Members approval and Spain’s official confirmation, the latter being provided by the Secretary General for Research Ministry of Science and Innovation on 26 October.
The Kingdom of Spain will be represented to the Assembly of Members by the Carlos III Institute of Health (ISCIII); Public Agency of Research attached to the Ministry of Science and Innovation, and becomes the 23rd Member of BBMRI-ERIC.
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EBW21 concludes another virtual conference with stellar presentations
BBMRI-ERIC and ESBB want to thank everyone who made Europe Biobank Week 2021 "Biobanking for our Future: Opportunities Unlocked" a success. In our second virtual conference November 8-10, we welcomed attendees from 42 countries, within Europe and as far as Canada and Australia.
Our programme included 39 live sessions and several on-demand sessions to enable participants to view as many sessions as possible at their convenience. In addition to traditional sessions we had an Ethics Café, “Pressure Cooker” and poster sessions with live Q&A.
Participants were actively engaging in the platform’s chat function throughout the 3-day conference. Feedback was overwhelmingly positive for the caliber of our speakers and sessions.
We look forward to welcoming you to Europe Biobank Week 2022 - stay tuned for details! A detailed summary of the conference will be published in our December newsletter.
Quality Management
Pre-analytical standards published in 2021
The list of European and international standards relevant to our research community has been supplemented on our website by four additional standards in the field of pre-analytics of biospecimens for molecular analysis. These are considered state of the art and should be taken into account in pre-analytical workflows. The updated list can be found on the BBMRI.QM subsite on standardisation.
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ELSI Services and Research
Webinar on "Gendered Innovations: The Importance of Gender in Biomedical Research"
Join BBMRI-ERIC ELSI for an exciting 2-hour webinar on gender in biomedical research, featuring two outstanding speakers on Tuesday, 30th November 2021 at 17:00 CET.
Part 1) Gendered Innovations in Biomedicine
Speaker: Londa Schiebinger
John L. Hinds Professor of History of Science
Director, Gendered Innovations in Science, Health & Medicine, Engineering, and Environment
Stanford University
Part 2) Practical considerations for the operationalization of sex- and gender-sensitive research in biomedicine
Speaker: Sabine Oertelt-Prigione
Chair of gender in primary and transmural care at the Radboud University in Nijmegen, the Netherlands
Professor of sex- and gender-sensitive medicine at the University of Bielefeld, Germany
Read more and register...
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News from our National Nodes
BBMRI.at: Project with BBMRI.at partner MedUni Wien Biobank involvement awarded the ‘Houska Preis 2021'
A success story of how a biobank can support researchers to improve healthcare
The MedUni Vienna Biobank was a key partner in a joint project between several Austrian universities and an industrial partner, which led to the development of two CE-certified quantitative SARS-CoV-2 antibody tests. The authors found that also individuals without core symptoms developed immunity against COVID-19, but to a lower degree than individuals with core symptoms.
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BBMRI.at: Biobanks in Low- and Middle-Income Countries: Relevance, Setup and Management
Experts at BBMRI.at partner Med Uni Graz contributed to a new book on biobanking to be published by Springer.
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BBMRI.at: Our Partner MedUni Wien Biobank involved in study of corona booster vaccinations effect
Participants for CoV “booster” study sought!
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BBMRI.cy: Biobank.cy mission to Austria
A delegation from the biobank.cy Centre of Excellence participated in a five-day training on the operation of a biobank, organised 20-25 September by the Graz Medical University and the Austrian National Node BBMRI.at. The topics of the training included the implementation and adaptation of a quality management system in the biobank, the design of a modern sample and data collection strategy and the implementation of additional biobank services, data management and IT systems issues for biobanks, and the most important tools to be used in a business plan for the sustainability of a modern biobank.
BBMRI.cy: Presentation at Europe Biobank Week 2021
The Director of the Centre of Excellence, Prof. Constantinos Deltas, presented the work of the Biobank of the University of Cyprus, as well as the Centre's research program on COVID-19, during Europe Biobank Week, which took place 8-10 November. The work of the Biobank was also mentioned in the presentation of Prof. Jens Habermann, BBMRI-ERIC Director General, senior partner of the Centre of Excellence.
BBMRI.de/German Biobank Node (GBN): GBN webinar: PBMCs - anything but peripheral
In the past year, interest in the biobanking of peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) for immunological research questions has increased enormously, especially in the context of COVID-19. This is because PBMCs play an important role in determining changes in the immune system. By means of immunological markers, dysregulations and thus possibilities to counteract them can be identified. The webinar “PBMCs - anything but peripheral“, organised by the German Biobank Node (GBN), provided comprehensive insight. Numerous colleagues from the German Biobank Alliance (GBA) community contributed to the success of the event with presentations.
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BBMRI.se - The 2022 Nordic Biobank Conference
Don’t forget to register for the 2022 Nordic Biobank Conference in Gothenburg (March 8-10)! The event is jointly organised by Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Iceland and Norway. Early Bird has been extended until December 31. The theme of the conference is “Current trends and challenges in the Nordic countries”, and the program is made up of several themed symposia, covering such topics as next-generation biobanking, biobanking sustainability, and patient engagement and return of genomic data.
Take a look at the preliminary program and register here.
Project News and Partners
IC2PerMed: As part of the Project IC2PerMed (Integrating China in the International Consortium for Personalised Medicine), BBMRI-ERIC is organizing 4 virtual round tables (VRTs).
“Get to know the European and Chinese landscape in Personalized Medicine (PM) – biobanking with special focus on the common intersections data/ELSI/quality” - that is the credo for the 4 VRTs!
What should you expect?
Within the VRTs renowned European and Chinese experts will present the European and Chinese perspective/challenges and future trends of four very important themes for personalised medicine (PM): biobanking - data - ELSI - quality.
The experts' presentations will be linked to the activities of the IC2PerMed working groups of Work Package 2 (knowledge synthesis on the identification, transferability and extension of international standards in PM).
All of this will be rounded up with an interactive question and answer session.
Registration
VRT#1: Biobanking – How does biobanking contribute to personalized medicine? This Round Table took place on Wednesday, November 17, 2021.
Almost 70 -particularly international- registrations led to an exciting and stimulating exchange at VRT#1.
VRT#2: Data - It’s all about data, isn’t it? Register
Wednesday, December 1, 2021 | 9:00 - 10:30 CET
VRT#3: ELSI - Four letters - do they matter? Register
Wednesday, January 19, 2022 | 9:00 - 10:30 CET
VRT#4: Quality - What’s missing when things don’t work as they should? Register
Wednesday, February 16, 2022 | 9:00 - 10:30 CET
BBMRI-ERIC is looking forward to seeing you again on December 1 for VRT#2.
Contact and information: Ulrike Rohrer - ulrike.rohrer@bbmri-eric.eu
Publication on Data Sharing Platforms:
- Devriendt T, Ammann C, W. Asselbergs F et al. An agenda-setting paper on data sharing platforms: euCanSHare workshop [version 2; peer review: 2 approved]. Open Research Europe NaN, 1:80 (https://doi.org/10.12688/openreseurope.13860.2)
BBMRI-ERIC's Head of ELSI Services & Research Michaela Th. Mayrhofer is co-author of this paper. The research was financially supported by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the grant agreement Nos 116074 (project BigData Heart), 825903 (project euCanSHare), 825775 (project CINECA) and 824989 (project EUCAN-Connect).
INSTAND-NGS4P, a pre-commercial procurement project on NGS in healthcare coordinated by BBMRI.at partner Med Uni Graz (BBMRI.at Director Kurt Zatloukal) has launched the Request for Tenders for the development of an integrated and standardized NGS workflow for integrating information from cancer gene testing, pharmocogenomics testing and e-medication in proper presentation to medical doctors for supporting therapy decision making.
Deadline for Receipt of Tenders: 19 December 2021
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Events
International Conference / 24-26 November 2021
Biosamples & Biodata in Medical Research – ELSI challenges
The Medical University of Lublin in collaboration with BBMRI.pl Consortium, BBMRI-ERIC and BBMR-ERIC ELSI are pleased to invite you.
Online / 29-30 November 2021 (provided by BBMRI.lv)
Webinar "Multi-omics methods for studying metabolic disorders: research excellence, wet lab techniques and bioinformatics approaches”
This seminar is aimed at biomedical, molecular biology and bioinformatics students and scientists who are currently doing or planning to do multi-omics studies. Participants don’t need any prior experience, the registration is mandatory and the webinar is free of charge.
Online / 29 November - 3 December 2021
Sino-EU Health Collaboration Week
Do you want to collaborate with health researchers and innovators from China and the EU? Join the first Sino-EU Health Collaboration week! IC2PerMed, SENET, IDIH, EURAXESS, ENRICH in China and Sino-EUPerMed are joining forces for a week of interesting webinars and matchmaking events. Are you interested in better understanding the state-of-play of collaboration and its challenges, including data sharing and exchange? Are you searching for the best mechanisms to connect and build a project with Chinese/European counterparts? Do you want to access the Chinese market or learn more about the opportunities of Sino-European collaboration on Personalised Medicine? Our webinars are for you!
Online / 6-7 December 2021
ESFRI Days 2021
The Slovenian Presidency of the Council of the EU and the European Strategy Forum on Research Infrastructures are pleased to organise ESFRI Days, an online event scheduled to take place from 6 to 7 December 2021.
ESFRI Days will feature ESFRI Roadmap 2021 Launch (7/12), complemented by the 78th ESFRI plenary meeting (for ESFRI National Delegates only)
Online / 1 February 2022, 13-17:00 CET
Virtual Organizational Tour and Workshop for Doctoral and Postdoctoral Researchers at BBMRI-ERIC
The University of Graz offers a virtual organizational visit and a workshop for doctoral and postdoctoral students in biomedical research careers at BBMRI-ERIC. This activity is organized within the Arqus Alliance actions for PhD employment support. The call is open for early-stage researchers of all Arqus universities. The virtual visit could be relevant for researchers from the fields of bioethics, ethics, law, social sciences, IT, biobanking, pathology, genomics, bioinformatics and quality management and policy, among others. Register by 15 Jan 2022!
Online / 8-10 February 2022
UK Biobank Showcase
Organised by the UKCRC Tissue Directory and Coordination Centre, the UK Biobanking Showcase is the UK's leading event for those who work in biobanking and human tissue research. Save the date for this year's Showcase - full details to follow soon!
Gothenburg, Sweden / 8-10 March 2022
The Nordic Biobank Conference
The Nordic Biobank Conference in Gothenburg is jointly organized by Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Iceland and Norway. Here’s a first reminder that registration will open after the summer, on September 1.
Lisbon, Portugal / 9-14 July 2022
FEBS Congress 2022
The 46th FEBS Congress is a joint event with IUBMB and PABMB, hosted by the Portuguese Biochemical Society in Lisbon, 9–14 July 2022, as 'The Biochemistry Global Summit'.
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Job Vacancies
BBMRI-ERIC is currently looking for a:
ERINHA is currently looking for a:
ECRIN is currently looking for a:
Find current job openings from BBMRI-ERIC partners here.
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We'd love to spread your news! If you would like to share any of your news, meetings, vacancies etc. in this newsletter, please send it by email.
The Central Executive Management Office
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