Current modalities and concepts on access and use of biospecimen samples and associated data for research from human biobanks

It is accepted worldwide that biospecimen and data sharing (BDS) play an essential role for the future of medical research to improve diagnostics and prognostics, e.g. by validated biomarkers. BDS is also pivotal to the development of new therapeutic treatments and for the improvement of population health. Human biobanks can generate an added value to this need by providing biospecimens and/or associated data to researchers. An inspection of several examples of epidemiological as well as clinical/disease-oriented biobanks in Germany shows that best practice procedures (BPP) that are internationally agreed on are being installed for biospecimen and/or data access. In general, fair access is aimed at requiring a written application by the requesting scientist, which is then peer-reviewed for scientific and ethical validity by the Biobank. Applied BPP take into account (i) patient education/agreement according to the informed consent model, (ii) privacy protection, (iii) intellectual property rights, the (iv) notification obligation of health-related findings (including incidental findings), the (v) use of material (MTA) and data transfer agreements (DTA) for mutual legal security, the avoidance of conflicts of interests, as well as for cost recovery/fee for service as a basis for sustainability of the biobank. BPP are rooted in the self-regulation efforts of life sciences and are supported by parent ethics committees in Germany. Central biobank registries displaying aggregated information on biospecimens stored and the research foci constitute an important tool to make biobanks that are scattered across the country visible to each other, and, can thus promote access to hitherto unknown biospecimen and data resources.