Support for research to improve health care
Support for research to improve health care
Support for research to improve health care
Support for research to improve health care
Support for research to improve health care
The Basque Biobank is a hospital-related platform aimed at promoting basic/clinical research that may lead to the development of tools for the prevention, diagnosis and discovery of therapeutic targets.
The operation of the Basque Biobank was certified by the Basque government's Department of Health on 20 July 2012, and it was subsequently inscribed in the biobank registry on 23 July 2012 (reg. no. B.0000140). This certification guarantees that the Basque Biobank complies with the quality management, traceability and biosafety requirements of Law 14/2007 on biomedical research and Royal Decree 1716/2011.
The Basque Biobank, which has a network structure that also involves all Osakidetza health centres, the Basque government's Department of Health and Onkologikoa, is operated by the Basque Foundation for Health Innovation and Research-BIOEF. As well as allowing all procedures to be standardised, this network-type organisation makes it easier to trace and follow-up patients at all the main hospitals in the Basque health system. Furthermore, after informed consent is obtained, it allows samples to be obtained from the same patient and information concerning the various diseases that they may suffer throughout their lives to be collated in order to perform longitudinal and correlative studies for various diseases, lifestyles and environmental effects even though the patient may have attended different hospitals or different departments within the same hospital.
Osakidetza, the Basque government's Department of Health and Onkologikoa have each signed collaboration agreements with BIOEF by which they cede all management and access rights for all samples generated by them to the Basque Biobank for research purposes in accordance with current legislation. Furthermore, the Basque Biobank is responsible for managing samples from the Spanish Society for Pneumology and Thoracic Surgery (SEPAR), the Spanish Sleep Society (SES) and is a DNA extraction centre for the EPIC Spain group (a prospective study on diet and cancer) in which five autonomous communities participate as part of the European EPIC project.
The Biobank collects populational, case-control and cohort samples from:
Likewise, the Basque Biobank collects samples from a broad range of diseases, such as cardiovascular disease, diabetes, metabolic disorders, respiratory diseases, cancer, neuromuscular diseases, mental illnesses and rare diseases, amongst others.
