Rapid technological advances, the establishment of large-scale biobanks, and the exchange of data across international boundaries raise a variety of questions for regulators struggling with the problem of how to govern such stores of information and the processes connected with them. Engaging with the pressing issues of privacy, consent, access to data, and benefit sharing, Principles and Practice in Biobank Governance draws together the latest empirical research from the UK, Europe, America, Australia and Asia to focus on these challenges. Current models of governance are critiqued, principles and policies are debated, and new models and theoretical frameworks are presented through this intellectually stimulating, informative volume. This truly international volume offers new insights from a range of disciplinary perspectives and will be essential reading for policy makers and scholars across a range of social sciences, including sociology, bioethics, law and social policy.

Biobanks are proliferating rapidly worldwide because they are powerful tools and organisational structures for undertaking medical research. By linking samples to data on the health of individuals, it is anticipated that biobanks will be used to explore the relationship between genes, environment and lifestyle for many diseases, as well as the potential of individually-tailored drug treatments based on genetic predisposition. However, they also raise considerable challenges for existing legal frameworks and research governance structures. This book critically examines the current governance structures in place for biobanks in England and Wales. It shows that the technologies, techniques and practices involved in biobanking do not always conform neatly to existing legal principles and frameworks that apply to other areas of medical research. Using a socio-legal approach, including interview data gathered from the scientific community, this book provides unique insights and makes recommendations about appropriate governance mechanisms for biobanking in the future. It also explores the issues around the secondary use of information, such as consent and how to protect privacy, when biobanks are accessed by a number of different third parties. These issues have relevance both within England and Wales and to a wide international audience, as well as for other areas where large datasets are used.

Rapid technological advances, the establishment of large-scale biobanks, and the exchange of data across international boundaries raise a variety of questions for regulators struggling with the problem of how to govern such stores of information and the processes connected with them. Engaging with the pressing issues of privacy, consent, access to data, and benefit sharing, Principles and Practice in Biobank Governance draws together the latest empirical research from the UK, Europe, America, Australia and Asia to focus on these challenges. Current models of governance are critiqued, principles and policies are debated, and new models and theoretical frameworks are presented through this intellectually stimulating, informative volume. This truly international volume offers new insights from a range of disciplinary perspectives and will be essential reading for policy makers and scholars across a range of social sciences, including sociology, bioethics, law and social policy.

Biobank research and genomic information are changing the way we look at health and medicine. Genomics challenges our values and has always been controversial and difficult to regulate. In the future lies the promise of tailored medical treatments and pharmacogenomics but the borders between medical research and clinical practice are becoming blurred. We see sequencing platforms for research that can have diagnostic value for patients. Clinical applications and research have been kept separate, but the blurring lines challenges existing regulations and ethical frameworks. Then how do we regulate it? This book contains an overview of the existing regulatory landscape for biobank research in the Western world and some critical chapters to show how regulations and ethical frameworks are developed and work. How should international sharing work? How design an ethical informed consent? An underlying critique: the regulatory systems are becoming increasingly complex and opaque. The international community is building systems that should respond to that. According to the authors in fact, it is time to turn the ship around. Biobank researchers have a moral responsibility to look at and assess their work in relation to the bigger picture: the shared norms and values of current society. Research ethics shouldn’t only be a matter of bioethicists writing guidelines that professionals have to follow. Ethics should be practiced through discourse and regulatory frameworks need to be part of that public discourse. Ethics review should be then not merely application of bureaucracy and a burden for researchers but an arena where researchers discuss their projects, receive advice and practice their ethics skills.

In the last few years, the boom in biobanking has prompted a lively debate on a host of interrelated legal issues, such as the Gordian knot of the ownership of biological materials, as well as privacy concerns. The latter are due to the difficulty of accepting that biological samples must be completely anonymous without making it practically impossible to exploit their information potential. The issues also include the delicate role and the changing content of the donor’s “informed consent” as the main legal tool that may serve to link the privacy and property interests of donors with the research interests and the set of principles that should be at the core of the biobanking practice. Lastly, the IP issues and the patentability of biological samples as well as the protection of databases storing genetic information obtained from the samples are covered. Collecting eighteen essays written by eminent scholars from Italy, the US, the UK and Canada, this book provides new solutions to these problems. From a comparative viewpoint, it explores the extent to which digital technology may assist in tackling the numerous regulatory issues raised by the practice of biobanking for research purposes. These issues may be considered and analyzed under the traditional paradigms of Property, Privacy, Informed Consent and Intellectual Property.

This volume is the first comprehensive text on human biobanking, authored by scientists and regulatory officers who have led the field over the past 10 years. It covers biobanking issues and its importance in advancing the field of research in cancer, cardiovascular, metabolic, and other diseases. Biobanks of human specimens have become the cornerstone for research on human health that harnesses the power of “omics” technologies to identify biomarkers for disease susceptibility. Biobanks are an essential component of the development of personalized medicine, which relies on the molecular analysis of biospecimens that are truly representative of individuals and of diseases. Over the past decade, biobanking has been the focus of major investments and developments aimed at developing appropriate infrastructure, methods, networking practice and evidence-based pre-analytical procedures. This volume explores topics including specimen storage, protocol design, specimen collection, pre-analytical processing and preservation, long-term storage, retrieval and separation, and distribution to analytical laboratory platforms. These activities are extremely complex and are essential for biomedical and biotechnological developments and this text provides critical information about biobanking for the development of future forms of medicine.​