Governing Biobanks Through a European Infrastructure

Abstract

In the framework of the 2007 call to support the preparatory phase of the European biobank infrastructures, the European Commission funded a specific project aiming to prepare a pan-European Biobanking and Biomolecular Resources Research Infrastructure (BBMRI) for biomedical and biological research in Europe and worldwide (Yuille et al. in Brief Bioinform 9:14–24, 2008). This infrastructure, which was to be built on new and existing national networks, resources and technologies, would be specifically complemented by innovative components and would be properly embedded into European ethical, legal and societal frameworks.