A symposium of Russian National Association of Biobanks and Biobanking Specialists (NASBIO) took place April 8, 2021 in Moscow as a part of XXVIII Russian National Congress “Human and Medicine”
Russian National Association of Biobanks and Biobanking Specialists (NASBIO) is actively promoting biobanking and supports collaboration of biobanks and biorepositories in Russia. Leading Russian biobanking specialists and representatives of various biomedical disciplines participated in its annual Symposium NASBIO-2021 which took place as a part of XXVIII Russian National Congress “Human and Medicine”. Due to the still serious epidemiological situation from COVID-19, the Symposium was held in fully virtual (online) mode.
The Symposium NASBIO-2021 included two sessions. Session 1, “Development of biobanking in Russia” was opened with greetings from the President of NASBIO Oxana Drapkina, Director of the National Medical Research Center for Therapy and Preventive Medicine (Moscow) and Corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Sciences. In her speech, Oxana Drapkina outlined the status and perspective of developing biobanking in Russia. Following this, vice-president of NASBIO, Sergey Anisimov, from the National BioService presented on Biobank types and formats. Anastasia Mikhailova from the Ott Research Institute of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductology and Saint-Petersburg State University presented the Russian Glossary of biobanking terms. Svetlana Apalco from City Hospital #40 (Saint-Petersburg) described particular features in setting up a disease-driven biobank. Finally, Thermo Fisher Scientific researchers presented specialized genotyping solutions for biobanks.
Session 2 was dedicated to “Approaches to biobanking in medicine”. Tatiana Astrelina from Burnasyan Federal Medical Biophysical Center of Federal Medical Biological Agency (Moscow) read a lecture entitled “Biobanks in medicine: discussion on key features”. It was followed by Roman Illarionov from the Biobank of Saint-Petersburg State University and Ott Research Institute of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductology, on creating a collection of samples from pregnant women at various terms to identify early biomarkers of premature delivery. Inna Novikova from National Medical Research Center of Oncology (located in the city of Rostov-on-Don) presented a lecture entitled “Biobank as a core research facility of the oncological center”. Then Ildar Kabirov from the city of Ufa has reported on the experience of the Biobank of Bashkir State Medical University in creating biospecimen collection from COVID-19 patients. Finally, Director of NASBIO, Alexei Meshkov, made concluding remarks on NASBIO activities in 2020 and plans for year 2021.
The sessions were followed by an open discussion, in which NASBIO members discussed goals and tasks, existing problems and perspectives. Much of discussion was around the COVID situation, and how biobanks deal with it.
Full video of NASBIO-2021 meeting is available here.
More about NASBIO:
Founding of the Russian National Association of Biobanks and Biobanking Specialists (NASBIO) in 2018 represented an essential step in developing biomedical research in Russia. NASBIO aims uniting efforts by Russian biobanking specialists, promote their collaboration on both national and international levels. Association focuses on implementing internationally recognized standards and methods into daily activities of Russia biobanks, creating a united information field, promoting education in biobanking, to facilitate Russian biomedical research. Association has voice in discussing ethical and law issues associated with collecting and storing biospecimens and associated data. It develops standardized quality management solutions essential for effective collaboration withing biobanking network. Creating a united system of Russian biobanks will allow to accumulate a required volume of biospecimens and information for research projects in various areas of biomedical science. More infomation is available at http://nasbio.ru/en/.