The Human Biomedical Research Act (HBRA) of Singapore regulates all research that involves human biospecimen in Singapore. Institutions or individuals aiming to establish a biobank under SingHealth must adopt best practices from established biobanks and ISBER. Recently, the team from SingHealth published a poster explaining the “Best Practices for Establishing a Biobank in Singapore Research Institution.” Stages […]
Most biobanks struggle with improving “utilization ratios” of their collections. The utilization ratio is the ratio of the specimen collected vs. distributed – which is critical for a biobank’s “sustenance.” SpecimenCatalog helps with sharing biospecimen data with researchers. It provides an easy-to-use interface for researchers to look for specimens of interest and submit requests. Catalogs […]
This month in 1792, the US Postal Service was created! Postage cost between 6 and 25 cents, depending on the distance your parcel needed to travel! The Postal Service Act, signed by George Washington on February 20th, transformed the Constitutional Post, a fledgling mail delivery service run by Benjamin Franklin, into an official department of […]
Research in precision medicine requires a continuous supply of high-quality biospecimens. But as the saying goes- “Garbage in garbage out”, meaningful conclusions from the studies can only be drawn when the researchers are assured that the materials used in their research were of good quality. A survey(1) conducted by the National Cancer Institute (NCI) funded cancer […]
Customer Speak “We were looking for a robust and structured system that is able to manage our biobank in a constructive way. We chose OpenSpecimen as the system was able to be customized to our specific needs and the developers, Krishagni were dedicated to biobanking and had a vast depth of experience that we could […]
Here is your monthly curated pick of biobanking news, jobs, and events from across the globe. Fresh of the Press Australian biobank repatriates hundreds of ‘legacy’ Indigenous blood samples Clinical trials planned for brain tumor ‘GPS’ maps at Case Western Reserve University Geisinger’s biobank surpasses 250,000 patients NIH establishes Infectious Diseases Clinical Research Consortium AI shows promise for breast cancer […]
Managing biospecimen data for longitudinal studies or clinical trials can be challenging. Clinical studies often go on for months or years, and involves complex workflows like kit preparations, tracking upcoming visits, multi-site collections, shipments, and so forth. To manage these types of collections, OpenSpecimen offers a customizable platform to plan, manage and track biospecimens in a […]
The long-term sustainability of biobanks has been a major concern. “Sustainability is [a biobank’s] capacity to remain operative, effective, and competitive over its expected lifetime.” OECD Global Science Forum 2017 BBMRI-NL has made a Series on Sustainable Biobanking, combining current knowledge from literature, workshops, and focus groups. The Series contains an infographic with nine recommendations […]
Organizing the forms for data entry can be important for the efficient and speed of data entry. By default, the order of the forms is based on the order of attaching them. However, this might not be the most ideal way from a data entry point of view. From v4.3, you can change the order […]
Have you seen the David Letterman’s interview of Bollywood star Shah Rukh Khan on Netflix? If not, it is worth watching to get a sneak peek into India and the life of a Bollywood star. While I never liked his movies, I always found his life story to be inspiring. If you happen to watch […]
