New European and US biobanking initiatives

November 6, 2009

A new national biobanking initiative is to be established after the Dutch government awarded €22.5m funding for the Biobanking and Biomolecular Resources Infrastructure Netherlands (BBMRI-NL), a network including several academic and other research bodies. The initiative is intended to integrate and enrich existing clinical data and samples to make them more accessible for researchers. Professor Gertjan van Ommen of Leiden University Medical Centre said: “The existing materials are often of high value and quality but underused because of fragmentation”. (PHG Foundation)