The quality of biospecimens stored in a biobank depends to a large extent on the competence of the technical staff responsible for processing and storing them and for making them available for research projects. Members of the Education & Training working group of the German Biobank Node (GBN) have assessed the training needs of technical assistants (TA) in biobanks and recently published "Harmonization of Biobank Education for Biobank Technicians: Identification of Learning Objectives" Open Access in the journal BioTech. First author Dr. Mara Hartung and her co-authors present the results of their online survey of 79 biobank staff from various academic biobanks. The majority of the participating biobank technicians reported having worked in a biobank for less than three years and had never participated in any biobanking-specific training. Other training is not specific to the work processes in a biobank. Three quarters of the TAs stated that they could not understand English content at first go. Based on such basic statements, the authors defined a total of 41 learning objectives.
The GBN training programme
The results of the study will be used by GBN to develop specific further education programmes for biobank technicians. The aim of the activities is to achieve harmonisation of sample handling through centrally organised training of staff, thus ensuring comparable quality across different biobank sites. For example, since 2018, GBN has offered on-site training on various topics for biobank technicians, combining theory and practice and giving staff the opportunity for personal exchange. Since January 2021, GBN has also set up an online forum for TAs on the ILIAS learning platform to enable digital exchange – which is especially relevant in times of Covid-19. An online course on DNA isolation, also on the ILIAS learning platform, is about to be published. Furthermore, these further training courses build on the results of the interlaboratory comparisons that GBN regularly conducts with its partner biobanks as part of the quality measures. In this way, success and development in the area of quality management in the biobanks can be tracked directly.
Further information and links:
- Hartung, M.L.; Baber, R.; Herpel, E.; Specht, C.; Brucker, D.P.; Schoneberg, A.; Winter, T.; Nussbeck, S.Y. Harmonization of Biobank Education for Biobank Technicians: Identification of Learning Objectives. BioTech 2021, 10, 7.
- GBN Online Forum for TAs
- Reports from on-site trainings
