The IGTP-HGT Biobank wins award for a presentation of its flexible and efficient services

On 17 October the team from the IGTP-GTP Biobank presented the oral communication and poster "Is our biobank dynamic?  Is there a correlation between samples stored and samples requested by users?" The communication was awarded the Victoria Cusí Prize for best communication by the Spanish Biobank Network at the congress they held on 17-18 October to celebrate 10 years of coordinating biobanks in Spain.

"We took the opportunity to carry out an internal audit of our biobank in order to check if it is keeping up to date with the needs of our clients," explains Dr Edurne Pedrosa, Director of the Biobank. There is a tendency to accumulate samples which are not being requested and this is not an efficient use of biobank resources. In the case of the IGTP-HGTP biobank the samples that are banked most are also the samples that are requested most, although often with a year or two's delay. The most requested samples are plasma, DNA and formalin fixed paraffin embedded (FFPE) tissue samples, although the bank is expanding and now including new samples such as: urine, stools and maternal milk.

Laia Pérez, who received the prize on behalf of the biobank was also pleased with the recognition of the work being carried out on Can Ruti Campus.

"We have even seen that in 2018 more samples were requested for research than were received," she told us.

Pedrosa concludes, "Our biobank is keeping up with times and showing itself to be flexible and efficient. The number of samples being used is increasing and we are adapting the types of samples we store to the changing needs of modern science. This award is a recognition of our task."