From the European Editor's Desk

In this issue we aim to capture many of the main points from the 2011 Marseille conference of the European, Middle Eastern and African Society for Biopreservation and Biobanking (ESBB). Here some key themes identified in the conference will be elaborated further.

One encouraging message from the Marseille conference was that biobanking has come a long way in the last 20 years. Biobanking has developed to the extent that it can now be described as a discipline in its own right. One reason is that it is a branch of learning in which there are now training courses leading to university certificates. Another is that it is an activity for which there are guidelines and rules of conduct including best practices, certification, and accreditation schemes. Biobanking is a very important discipline because so much research across all the biological and medical sciences depends on it. Without proper biobanking, it is impossible to have high-quality, well-annotated biospecimens. It is also a very interesting discipline because it depends on contributions from many different fields of expertise including molecular biology, biology, medicine, informatics, engineering, ethics, law, sociology, and management. It also serves a wide range of fields, ranging from medical research, diagnosis, therapy and reproductive and forensic medicine, as well as environmental monitoring and biodiversity research. As a result, biobanking conferences attract attendees with diverse interests and expertise, and the synergy achieved when these diverse groups come together can be both exciting and productive, as was the case at the Marseille ESBB conference.

Naturally, since biobanking is a very broad field, there are some areas in which we have advanced further than in others. In human biobanking, there has been steady progress in developed countries but there is still a long way to go in many emerging countries. For biobanks of non-human materials, there has been excellent progress for collections of microbes (culture collections), but much progress is required for museum biobanks conserving samples from endangered species and environmental specimen banks that monitor pollution. One advantage of broad spectrum biobanking conferences like those of ESBB and ISBER is that diverse groups across the breadth of the biobanking field can learn and benefit from each other.

One general challenge that emerged from our discussions in Marseille was that of educating the many different stakeholder groups about the value and benefits of biobanking. Here are three particularly relevant quotes from the conference:

•  “Most Europeans have never heard of biobanking.” This is a quote from Herbert Gottweis' presentation, which indicates that we have a big task on our hands in Europe and perhaps elsewhere. Evidently, we have not done nearly enough to educate the general public about the value and benefits of biobanking. No doubt there will be room for improvement for the other stakeholder groups as well.

•  “A stakeholder is a person, group, or organization that affects or can be affected by the planned action(s).” This is a quote from Roger Bjugn's presentation. For his own university hospital setting, he identified the following biobank stakeholders: patients/relatives, general practitioners, heads of department, funders, public bodies, political bodies, and the media. For other types of biobanks, the stakeholder groups are different. For example, since every person on earth can be affected by biodiversity loss and environmental decline, we are all stakeholders for museum biobanks and environmental specimen banks.

•  “We should preserve every scrap of biodiversity as priceless while we learn to use it and come to understand what it means to humanity.” This is a quote from the author and naturalist E.O.Wilson mentioned in one of Domink Lermen's slides. This view emphasizes the need for biobanking non-human species in this era of pollution, global warming, and mass extinctions.

Educating the many different stakeholder groups about the value and benefits of biobanking is a difficult challenge for at least three underlying reasons. First, while biobanking may be an idea that is changing the world right now (Time magazine, March 12 2009), it is not an idea that is particularly easy to sell. This is because the benefits of biobanking are rather indirect. They are more indirect than for the research that biobanking supports, and they are very much more indirect than the exciting results and treatments that may result from such research. So this is one part of our problem. Second, like everybody else, we as biobankers are most concerned about things that have immediate effects and benefits. For example, if we have funds to establish a biobank, we think first about buying equipment, recruiting staff and collecting samples so that we can demonstrate results both quickly and clearly. Educating stakeholders may be low on the list of priorities because the benefits are indirect and intangible. Third, we have a “Tower of Babel” problem at the very simplest level: the biobanking community does not agree on the definition of the word biobank.

Defining “Biobank”

For some of us the term biobank only applies to collections representing human populations (i.e., population biobanks). For others it only applies to collections of human samples, and for others it applies to all biological collections whether they are human, animal, plant, or microbe. For some the term biobank only applies to collections for which the primary purpose is research, for others the purpose can be anything including therapy, forensics, and assisted reproduction. Clearly, we need to come to an agreement on the meaning of the word biobank as soon as possible. Two relevant questions are as follows: (1) Is there anything about the word biobank that suggests specificity in terms of species, or purpose? (2) Given the benefits of sharing expertise across the discipline of biobanking, what is to be gained by restricting the meaning of the word biobank to a specific subtype of biological collection?

Strategy for Educating Stakeholder Groups

To educate stakeholder groups we need to (i) identify the target stakeholder groups, (ii) develop appropriate messages and (iii) deliver these messages effectively. The messages to be delivered will be different for different stakeholder groups. For patients and the general public, information about the research benefits may be most effective while for administrators and funders, economic arguments will be worth emphasizing. For example, as mentioned in Jim Vaught's talk in Marseille, the proper collection and storage of clinical samples can lead to more reliable diagnostic tests and, as a result, reduced spending on healthcare. In terms of delivering messages effectively, it seems obvious that the internet must provide many low-cost or free opportunities for promoting our discipline.

The internet is vast so we need to identify and focus on those places where we can have the most effect. The Facebook pages (or fan pages) of patient organizations seem like one good place to start. These pages allow for 2-way communication and literally anyone can contribute by commenting on posts. Given the size and complexity of the web, the number of such opportunities is probably only limited by our imaginations.

Conclusion

Lessons learned from talks at the Marseille conference indicate that one of the biggest challenges we face in the biobanking field is to educate the many different stakeholder groups about the value and benefits of biobanking. This will be a big project and a long-term one. Maybe it is also a project that volunteer members of organizations like ISBER and ESBB will be able to tackle very effectively through coordinated action on the internet.