The reconfiguration of biobanks in Europe under the BBMRI-ERIC framework: towards global sharing nodes?

Violeta Argudo-Portal,Miquel Domènech

doi:10.1186/s40504-020-00105-3

Violeta Argudo-Portal, Miquel Domènech

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1186/s40504-020-00105-3

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Abstract

Freezers with biospecimen deposits became biobanks and later were networked at the pan-European level in 2013 under the Biobanking and BioMolecular Resources Research Infrastructure—European Research Infrastructure Consortium (BBMRI-ERIC). Drawing on document analysis about the BBMRI-ERIC and multi-sited fieldwork with biobankers in Spain from a science and technology studies approach, we explore what biobanks are expected to do and become under the BBMRI-ERIC framework, and how infrastructural transitions promote particular transformations in biobanking practices. The primary purpose of biobanks in Europe is presented as being to become mediators in contemporary biomedical research (global sharing nodes) distribution, and distributed nodes of samples and their associated data. We argue that infrastructural transitions are complicated and heterogeneous, giving rise to unattended local concerns on adjusting their practices to fit into the BBMRI-ERIC framework, even for non-members, as the case of Spain illustrates, where “old practices” of collection and storage are questioned. In this article, we aim to encourage qualitative studies to explore the lags between pan-European policies and prospects, different contextual interpretations, and biobanking reconfigurations as an opportunity to explore what that lag is made of (e.g. tensions with “old practices,” unresolved conflicts with the national agendas, reservations on a possible centralization of the biobanking practices by regional biobanks, lack of funding, etc.). Such research could enrich not only policy guidance, but also the understanding of technoscientific infrastructures’ scalability.

Highlights

In the late 1990s, several countries started to establish “nationally delimited, population-based genetic databases, more commonly known as population biobanks” (Mitchell and Waldby 2010, 332)
Freezers and deposits with samples became biobanks and later were called to be networked at a pan-European level to expand their potential as distributors of samples and their associated data
In Europe, these transformations are led by the BBMRI-ERIC, which policy prospect connects biobanks at a pan-European level, as a “networked sector,” re-articulating biobanks challenges and practices

Summary

Introduction

In the late 1990s, several countries started to establish “nationally delimited, population-based genetic databases, more commonly known as population biobanks” (Mitchell and Waldby 2010, 332). These biobanks were framed under the narrative of national resources (Cambon-Thomsen et al 2003) and population national branding (Tupasela 2017b). The spread and rise of national biobanks run chronologically and in parallel with the last phase of the Human Genome Project (HGP), a large-scale biology project that has been considered a transformative agent of biology and medicine throughout a “big science” approach (Collins et al 2003; Hood and Rowen 2013). A part of “thinking bigger” in biomedical research draws upon human biospecimen repositories, such as biobanks, whose procedures called for harmonization to allow the general use of samples, their associated data, and the services required to ease the post-HGP biomedical research

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