Event: Nordic Biobank Research – Obstacles and Opportunities

January 26, 2011

May 3-4, 2011
Conference at Uppsala Konsert & Kongress

The aim of the conference is to discuss Nordic collaboration in biobank based research. The Nordic countries have a long history of utilising biological samples, patient records and health registers to study disease in the population and develop new forms of intervention, treatments and medications.  Biobanking, however, raises ethical questions on how to address integrity, privacy, access, legislation and protection from information excess in light of the possibilities to understand and treat diseases using new technology.

The conference will investigate opportunities and obstacles of getting new knowledge by using integrated information from registers, patient records and biobanks.  We seek to address the question of whether there is a need for a wider view of autonomy for biobank based research and what this would entail, e.g regarding informed consent and ethical review? Is the perspective of public trust eroding when all focus is on informed consent? Individual rights or public good – how should the balance be made in association with biobank based research? Is ethical review of biobank based research up to date? In brief, what are the interests at stake that need protection on the one hand and promotion on the other?

We welcome researchers and scientists who use the samples, the clinicians who collect them, the administrators who handle them and members of research ethics committees who approve the research the biobanked material is used for. We also welcome researchers interested in the ethical, legal, social and economical aspects of biobank research and biobanking, and the lawyers, politicians and administrators who deal with those aspects.

For further information and registration please contact the secretary of the Nordic Committee on Bioethics Lotta Knutsson BrÃ¥kenhielm ([email protected])

For more information: http://ncbio.org/english/2010/12/nordic-biobank-reasearch-obstacles-and-opportunities/