The Spanish Biobank Network (RNBB) has been present in the International Biobank Conference 2019, held in Doha, Qatar, from 25 to 27 March. It was represented by Cristina Villena, Coordinator of RNBB and the Lung Cancer Biobank Platform at the Respiratory Disease Networking Biomedical Research Centre (CIBERES), and Isabel Gil-Aldea, Coordinator of the Navarrabiomed Biobank.

At the conference, organised by the European, Middle Eastern & African Society for Biopreservation and Biobanking (ESBB) in collaboration with the Qatar Biobank (QBB), with the support of BBMRI-ERIC and the International Society for Biological and Environmental Repositories (ISBER), experts discussed the characteristics of national biobanks and shared international experiences in connection with data return from sample donations for research.

Villena spoke on day 1, as part of the panel ‘Donors Matter: Incidental Findings & Return of Genetic Data’. She discussed the experience of Spanish biobanks, based on the work done by RNBB Legal and Ethical Advisory Committee.

Gil-Aldea spoke on day 2, as part of the panel ‘Biobanks as a Useful Tool in the Process of Drug Development and Discovery of Biomarkers’. She talked about the experience of the Navarrabiomed Biobank in the development of new therapies and the discovery of biomarkers for the different disease stages.

In addition, the conference participants visited the QBB, a medical research platform dedicated to improving the lives and health of the Qatari people. QBB’s activity is framed within the Qatar Genome Programme (QGP), a pioneering project in the implementation of precision medicine at the international level.

A national platform

The RNBB Platform is an initiative of Instituto de Salud Carlos III (ISCIII), aimed at adding value of the National Health System by promoting quality scientific knowledge production. At present, the platform comprises 52 institutions across Spain and 688 researchers.