New forms of scientific cooperation could make Germany much better prepared for further pandemics. This was said by Prof. Dr. Joachim Schultze, coordinator of the German Covid-19 Omics Initiative (DeCOI) during the virtual 9th National Biobank Symposium. "Biobanks must play an even more central role in the future," Schultze said in his keynote. "Because the task is not to archive samples, but to allow and accelerate organised data generation." He explained how DeCOI benefits from principles of "swarm learning", which enables shared learning while maintaining local data sovereignty. DeCOI has already achieved great success since its founding earlier this year - for example, with influential publications on immunodeviation in severe Covid-19 courses and the establishment of a national viral sequencing infrastructure.
Knowledge exchange in the biobanking community
Biobanks in Germany offer ideal conditions for joint learning. In addition to events such as the Biobank Symposium, the German Biobank Node (GBN) in particular provides an excellent forum for knowledge exchange. The German Biobank Alliance (GBA), coordinated by GBN, grew even closer together during the pandemic, at times discussing the state of affairs on a weekly basis. This made it possible, especially at the beginning of the pandemic, to quickly clarify open questions about occupational safety and to disseminate the findings in the biobanking community. This valuable support by GBN/GBA was underlined by Prof. Dr. Michael Hummel, head of the Central Biobank of Charité/BIH (ZeBanC) and GBN, during his presentation at the symposium on "Covid-19 biobanking - experiences from the community". In her presentation on the "NAPKON Biospecimen Core", Dr. Gabriele Anton emphasised the key role played by GBN/GBA in the National Pandemic Cohort Network (NAPKON). The GBA will continue to grow in 2021: the next application phase starts on 15 January. From this year on, biobanks can also join as "observer biobanks" in preparation for a later partnership.
New format: session for biobank technicians
In order to promote exchange between technical biobank staff, this year's Biobank Symposium offered for the first time a session specifically for technicians - topic: "Validation of biobank processes: Theory and Best Practice". Dr. Ronny Baber presented "The Validation Concept of the Leipzig Medical Biobank". Validation is about the fundamental question of whether a process is suitable for a specific intended use. "We have to think about what can have an influence on the biobank processes. This is what distinguishes professional biobanks from other sample collections without quality management," said Baber. Dr. Heidi Altmann then spoke about the "Validation of a fully automated robotic system for the isolation of mononuclear cells from blood and bone marrow for biobanking". This automated isolation is currently only offered in Dresden and has already been successfully validated. Altmann's conclusion: "Automation can be standardised and saves time." Finally, Dr. Michael Neumann asked in his lecture: "Software validation - what do I have to do with it?". His answer: a lot, after all, the users of a software are required to check that the user needs are met.
High participation at the Biobank Symposium
Due to the Corona pandemic, the 9th National Biobank Symposium was held for the first time as a virtual event on 8-10 December 2020. All sessions were fully booked; on average 150 people attended each session. The symposium was jointly organised by the German Biobank Node (GBN) and the umbrella organisation for networked medical research in Germany (TMF e.V.). In 2021, the Biobank Symposium is expected to take place again as a face-to-face event; a date has not yet been set.
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