What began as a response to the COVID-19 pandemic has now become an integral part of biobanking education in Germany: The webinar programme of the German Biobank Node (GBN) and the German Biobank Alliance (GBA) is celebrating its fifth anniversary. Since its inception, 35 webinars and more than 120 presentations have been held, with an average of 54 interested parties attending the webinars in recent years. The webinars were generally held in German.
"The webinars are always very well prepared and cover a wide range of topics. Participants can ask questions directly," says Dr. Romy Kirsten, head of the Integrated Biobank Mannheim (IBM), who also recommends the webinars to her staff. "So far, I have only received positive feedback."
From crisis management to knowledge platform
In 2020, GBN and GBA reacted quickly to the challenges posed by the pandemic and launched a series of webinars on topical issues such as the handling of infectious samples. The positive response and high demand for digital knowledge transfer led to a continuous expansion of the programme. Today, the range of topics covers all key areas of biobanking such as project management, IT, logistics and quality management.
Sustainable training programmes
The webinar programme has become an important part of the training programme for biobank staff. The recordings are available free of charge to GBA biobank staff on the OpenILIAS platform. Participation in the webinars can also be documented with certificates, which can also be used as standard-compliant training certificates according to DIN EN ISO 20387:2020. The webinars will remain a central element of knowledge transfer in the future.
New: Workshop recording on microbiome research
New on OpenILIAS is the recording of a workshop on 'Biobanking in Microbiome Research'. The workshop brought together around 50 researchers and biobank representatives. Topics included the importance of sample collection and storage, the need for new technologies, and the challenges of global microbiome research.
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