Name: Network of Czech Biobanks
Institution: Masaryk Memorial Cancer Institute
Coordinator: doc. Mgr. Roman Hrstka, Ph.D., hrstka@mou.cz
Website
BBMRI.cz collects and stores human biological material and associated clinical data. Primary tumour tissues and other samples that would otherwise be irretrievably lost for future research are specifically collected since they are not routinely preserved in health care institutions. Human biological material is catalogued into collections in BBMRI.cz and these comprehensively characterized collections are a key element for both current and future research projects. The unique units of these collections are no longer denoted as samples, but rather as “sample/ data sets” that aggregate clinical data with a specified biological material. BBMRI.cz is inherently anchored in the backbone institutions of Czech academic medicine, faculty hospitals and specialized healthcare institutions. BBMRI.cz also has a unique set of technologies and knowledge for conducting translational research, and for transferring clinical applications from translational research to academic clinical trials. The user community utilises the expertise of the skilled staff of BBMRI.cz, ranging from their consulting and data services to the human biological material stored in BBMRI.cz biorepositories. BBMRI.cz is represented as the Czech national node to BBMRI-ERIC (Biobanks and Biomolecular Resources Research Infrastructure Consortium) and the Czech Republic is its Founding Member. BBMRI.cz, as a part of BBMRI-ERIC, is currently a central medical RI that is focusing on the problem of the irreproducibility of research results through the implementation of quality control processes into activities related to the long-term archiving of human biological material and its subsequent use for meaningful research purposes.
BBMRI.cz fundamentally participates in the development and gradual improvement of web tools, such as the BBMRI-ERIC Directory or the BBMRI-ERIC Negotiator freely available to the European research community. The BBMRI-ERIC Directory is a horizontal cataloguing tool that provides concise, sufficiently clear information about European biobanks involved in BBMRI-ERIC. This tool supports finding a suitable partner biobank for researchers interested in specific clinical sample/data sets. The BBMRI-ERIC Negotiator tool enables specific communication between the applicant (research, development) and the provider (the institution managing the biobank).
