BBMRI.at#3

Since its founding in 2013, BBMRI.at has developed a highly collaborative biobanking community by engaging with all Medical Universities in Austria. BBMRI.at took great effort in enlarging the visibility and usage of leading Austrian biobank cohorts. In its third project period (2023-2028), BBMRI.at will build on achievements of previous years, continuing to put emphasis on sample and data quality and harmonization, facilitating access to biobank samples/data, networking with industry and science, and fostering research collaborations using biobanked samples/data and expertise. The consortium will also focus on engaging different stakeholders, such as researchers, clinicians, and citizens. In addition, new topics with current relevance for biobanking are in focus, such as the One Health approach and comparative medicine (human – animal), data integration in BBMRI-ERIC, data-related legal/regulatory issues, and environmental sustainability in biobanking.

BBMRI.at is Funded by the Austrian Federal Ministry of Education, Science and Research Grant numbers: GZ 10.470/0016-II/3/2013 (2013-2018), BMBWF-10.470/0010-V/3c/2018 (2018-2023) and 2023-0.752.780 (2023-2028).

Goals and Key Activities.

Updates on the project’s developments can be found on the news section of the BBMRI.at website.

The Department of Innovation and Digitalisation in Law is responsible for BBMRI.at #3’s Work Package 2. Within its activities, it hosts and operates a national legal helpdesk (addressing legal and regulatory issues under national Austrian and European Union law, especially in the areas of data protection, data security, intellectual property rights and biodatabase law), monitors legal and regulatory developments and provides input to current legal discussions. The Department’s contribution to the Project also extends to providing support to the BBMRI-ERIC ELSI (Ethical, Legal, and Social Issues) team, namely through the ELSI Helpdesk.

More information on the project can be found on the BBMRI.at website and in u:cris.