Abstract
In an upcoming issue of the Journal, a series of articles concerning some of the major themes of the ESBB conference will appear. For now I want to highlight some of the meeting topics that demonstrate how a number of critical international biobanking and biopreservation issues are being advanced by ESBB in its second year of existence. The diversity of presentations and posters was striking. Many of the Biobank Management posters are good candidates for Biopreservation and Biobanking Biobank Profiles. A number of posters from biobankers in Africa were presented, for example: Public Perspectives in Biobanking in Nigeria (Igbe and Adebamowo) and Access to Human Biological Materials in Collaborative Research with Developed Countries Conducted in South Africa: A Case Study (Sathar, et. al.). The Frozen Ark Project from the University of Nottingham (A. Clarke) is a unique effort involving a global strategy to preserve specimens from endangered species. An impressive array of ELSI posters highlighted the special challenges of international coordination of these issues, for example a poster from Spanish investigators Barriuso-Iglesias and Ferreira, entitled Legal and Ethical Discrepancies of European Biobanks: Will We Ever See a Common Legal Framework? In the Education and Standards category a paper by Watson, et. al., Biobank Certification: Update on the Canadian Tumour Repository Network Program, reports on the continuation of a trend toward formal accreditation and certification of biobanks. Of particular interest as we strive to develop more evidence-based biobanking and biopreservation standards, there were 31 abstracts in the Biospecimen Research category. The SPIDIA group from Germany and their collaborators reported on Evidence-Based Biobanking: From Patient to Storage (Kap, et. al.). Piero-Chova and colleagues from Spain studied Stability of miRNAs in Tissue Samples of Compromised Quality. These preliminary biospecimen research studies are critical first steps in developing peer-reviewed manuscripts that in some cases will be incorporated into new editions of ISBER's best practices and other international guidelines and biobanking accreditation programs.
As is always the case for ISBER and ESBB conferences, the exhibitors were essential partners for the Granada meeting. The diversity of displays of supplies and state-of-the-art equipment and advice from expert technical representatives nicely complemented the scientific presentations, and provided attendees with ideas to improve their biobanking operations, for example through automating certain tasks or introducing more sophisticated sample tracking capabilities.
During the Granada conference the Journal hosted a meeting of our editorial board. Approximately 20 members were either present or joined by telephone. From the discussion a number of excellent ideas for special issues and series of articles for Biopreservation and Biobanking emerged, including topics from the information technology, disaster planning and recovery, and ethical and regulatory areas. Look for these important contributions later in 2013.
The above contributions to the ESBB conference will give us excellent opportunities to attract manuscripts that will continue to expand and improve our journal's scope and coverage of emerging areas in the fields of biopreservation and biobanking. I have been following up with individual notes to various authors of presentations and posters from the ESBB meeting and expect to start seeing some of their manuscripts in upcoming issues of the Journal. In addition, we can expect the upcoming ISBER annual meeting in Sydney, Australia to result in presentation of further advances and additional material for the journal.
Finally, on the topic of meetings, which are important sources of topics and articles for Biopreservation and Biobanking, note that abstracts from Extreme Cryo 2012 appear in this issue. Unlike ESBB and ISBER conferences, which mostly concentrate on various aspects of biobanking, meetings such as Extreme Cryo and ACCryo2013 (a joint meeting of the American College of Cryosurgery and the Society for Cryobiology, held in January 2013) focus on topics unique to the Journal's complementary major topic area of biopreservation/cryopreservation. As noted in the introduction to the Extreme Cryo abstracts, “a variety of topics were discussed during the meeting, including cryoconservation, cartilage preservation and transplantation, improved techniques for cell preservation and for characterization of cell deterioration during storage, advanced experimental design, and mathematical modeling in cryobiology.”
As we enter the new year, I'm looking forward to Biopreservation and Biobanking continuing to provide a critical outlet for publication of results from the above meetings and organizations. If there are other conferences that you think address topics that would contribute to fulfilling the Journal's mission I would be happy to hear from you.