New international ethical guidelines for biobank researchers launched
Swedish ethics researchers at the Center for Bioethics (CBE), together with leading biobank researchers, have put together a set of practical ethical guidelines for biobank research. Writing in the latest issue of Nature Biotechnology, the researchers present for the first time a comprehensive manual tackling the central issues involving biobank research in the life sciences. Biobanks consist of systematically gathered biological samples that are valuable for both research and medical treatments. When tissue samples are linked to good clinical data, they become indispensable to medical science. At the same time a number of ethical issues are raised regarding the use of these samples. 'It is crucial to be able to weigh the conflicting interests, so that the regulation of biobank research doesn't become a patient security problem in diagnosis, care and treatment,' says Mats G. Hansson, professor of biomedical ethics and Director of the Centre for Bioethics at the Karolinska Institute and Uppsala University in Sweden. In the past, biobank scientists engaging in international collaborative projects have faced the uphill task of navigating through a plethora of wide-ranging guidelines and regulations in different countries. Now for the first time, researchers will have access to an ethical framework providing them with a comprehensive solution to addressing their concerns over medical needs and personal integrity. According to Professor Hansson, it is important that ethical questions surrounding medical research be discussed and examined in the same forum as the scientific discussion. 'It's also important that proposals regarding the ethical balancing of various interests be put through the same type of independent scrutiny by being peer-reviewed in established scientific journals, just like medical research,' he claims. 'The framework is not only an instrument for researchers, but can also serve as a guide for ethics committees throughout Europe,' he added.
Countries
Sweden