The publication 'Update of the Minimum Information About BIobank Data Sharing (MIABIS) Core Terminology to the 3rd Version' – written by a team of authors with significant participation of the German Biobank Node (GBN) and the German Biobank Alliance (GBA) – is one of the three most downloaded articles in the journal 'Biopreservation and Biobanking' in 2024. The journal reported this success in a newsletter.

Towards more sustainable use of biospecimens and data

The MIABIS data standard specifies the minimum information that must be available for collaboration between biobanks and for the exchange of biospecimens and data. The aim is to make the use of these resources more sustainable and, for example, to enable reuse. MIABIS and other standards (SPREC) form the basis for the creation of the Sample Locator search data sets and the BBMRI-ERIC Directory.

MIABIS 3.0: Integrating data-driven biobanks

In the paper published in 'Biopreservation and Biobanking', Niina Eklund and her co-authors describe the adaptation of MIABIS to include more data-oriented biobanks and to describe services that biobanks provide to their users in addition to retrospective samples. In addition, the terminology has been extended to include collections of samples and data of non-human origin. A set of organisational characteristics has also been developed to describe networks. 

Further information and links:

• Eklund N, Engels C, Neumann M, Strug A, van Enckevort E, Baber R, Bloemers M, Debucquoy A, van der Lugt A, Müller H, Parkkonen L, Quinlan P, Urwin E, Holub P, Silander K, Anton G. Update of the Minimum Information About BIobank Data Sharing (MIABIS) Core Terminology to the 3rd Version. Biopreservation and Biobanking. Volume 22, Number 4, 2024. https://doi.org/10.1089/bio.2023.0074
• Sample Locator
• BBMRI-ERIC-Directory