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Software Tools for Biobanking in LMICs

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Biobanks in Low- and Middle-Income Countries: Relevance, Setup and Management

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Abstract

The appreciation of the scientific value of biospecimens for current and future basic and translational research is increasingly being recognised. While biobanks in high-income settings are well established, the number of facilities in low- and middle-income countries is growing, albeit at a slower pace. There exist several challenges for biological research centres, which operate in low resource settings, and these need to be taken into consideration when seeking to apply consensus in the biobanking discipline. The overall cost of custodianship should be taken into account, so as not to create, and indirectly promote, exclusivity, exploitation and knowledge silos. Therefore, standards and tools for biospecimen quality management must be democratised for biorepositories in a variety of settings to have a truly global impact on research.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation projects B3Africa (GA No 654404) CY-Biobank (GA No 857122) and HEAP (GA No 874662).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. South African Medical Research Council Bioinformatics Unit, South African National Bioinformatics Institute, University of the Western Cape, Cape Town, South Africa

    Dominique Anderson, Hocine Bendou & Alan Christoffels

  2. Diagnostic and Research Center for Molecular BioMedicine, Diagnostic and Research Institute of Pathology, Medical University of Graz, Graz, Austria

    Bettina Kipperer, Kurt Zatloukal & Heimo Müller

Authors
  1. Dominique Anderson
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  2. Hocine Bendou
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  3. Bettina Kipperer
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  4. Kurt Zatloukal
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  5. Heimo Müller
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  6. Alan Christoffels
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Heimo Müller .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. International Biobanking and Education, Medical University of Graz, Graz, Austria

    Karine Sargsyan

  2. Division of Cell Biology, Histology and Embryology, Gottfried Schatz Research Center, Medical University of Graz, Graz, Austria

    Berthold Huppertz

  3. Institute of Cellular Biorehabilition, Kharkiv, Ukraine

    Svetlana Gramatiuk

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Anderson, D., Bendou, H., Kipperer, B., Zatloukal, K., Müller, H., Christoffels, A. (2022). Software Tools for Biobanking in LMICs. In: Sargsyan, K., Huppertz, B., Gramatiuk, S. (eds) Biobanks in Low- and Middle-Income Countries: Relevance, Setup and Management. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-87637-1_20

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