Biobank literature update week 48 (2015)
[1] Biomarkers for diagnosis: looking for change. Fisher M. Biomarkers in medicine 2015; 9:1275-1277.
[2] The UK Biobank. Matthews PM, Sudlow C. Brain : a journal of neurology 2015; 138:3463-3465.
[3] Ethical governance in biobanks linked to electronic health records. Caenazzo L, Tozzo P, Borovecki A. European
review for medical and pharmacological sciences 2015; 19:4182-4188. In the last years an alternative to traditional
research projects conducted with patients has emerged: it is represented by the pairing of different type of disease
biobanks specimens with Electronic Health Records (EHRs). Even if informed consent remains one of the most contested
issues of biobank policy, other ethical challenges still require careful attention, given that additional issues are related to
the use of EHRs. In this new way of doing research harmonization of governance is essential in practice, with the aim to
make the most use of resources at our disposal, and sharing of samples and data among researchers under common
policies regulating the distribution and the use. A biobank-specific Ethics Committee could be seen as a new and type of
Ethics Committee, that we suggest to be applied to each biobank, with possible different functions. In particular,
considering the possible use of electronic health record data linked to biological specimens in biobanking research, this
specific Ethics Committee could draft best practice and ethical guidelines for the utilisation of the EHRs as a tool for
genetic research, addressing concerns on accessibility, return of results and privacy and help to educate patients and
healthcare providers.
[4] Quality assessment and preservation of RNA from biobank tissue specimens: a systematic review. Caixeiro NJ, Lai
K, Lee CS. Journal of clinical pathology 2015. It is well recognised that genomic, proteomic and biomarker studies require
properly annotated and well-characterised biospecimens. Consequently, this necessitates biobanks to collect, store and
distribute biospecimens under stringent quality control and assurance measures. However, despite this realisation,
there remains a lack of standardisation in quality management among biobanks and consensus as to which quality
indicators provide the optimal molecular diagnostic performance tools and information for biospecimens. In an attempt
to identify key factors that predict tissue specimen integrity and quality, this systematic review investigated the
measures reported in the literature, which characterised the collection, processing and storage of high-quality tissue
specimens. Our findings demonstrated RNA integrity, alone, may not be an effective measure of tissue quality.
Furthermore, the frequently reported parameters related to biospecimen integrity, such as storage time, temperature,
time to cryopreservation and tissue morphology were also not effective indicators of quality control and assurance.
These findings suggest that it is unlikely that a single marker will provide the optimal diagnostic and performance
information for biospecimens, but rather, a panel of markers assessing the molecular integrity of the lifespan of the
biospecimen is required. Further work is needed to identify which factors predict specimen integrity and quality in
biobanked tissue specimens.