Since the Leipzig Research Center for Civilisation Diseases (LIFE) was set up 2010, I’ve been active in the interesting field of biobanking. Now I’m head of the LIFE-Biobank and preanalytical laboratory. My personal experiences in biobanking have concentrated on quality assurance of biological samples in biobanks, biobank management and education. I’m a member of the expert committee working group in the German Institute for Standardization (DIN) which supports the ISO TC 276 responsible for the coming new ISO norm 20387 on biobanking and BBMRI-ERIC QM workgroups 3 and 4 for the evaluation of CEN standards. I also participated in quality workshops of BBMRI.de, which produced generic standard operating procedures. As part of the Steering Committee of the new “German Biobank Alliance” (GBA) initiated and coordinated by BBMRI.de we try to link GBA biobanks to the BBMRI-ERIC infrastructure for the cross-border exchange of biosamples and related data. To do so harmonization between GBA and BBMRI-ERIC is needed especially in IT networking, common quality standards and measurements as well as ELSI regulations.
