Czech Biobank Network as an integral part of the innovation ecosystem #brnoregion

"Biobanking and the availability of biological material are topics that we tried to attract an audience consisting of students, scientists, entrepreneurs, representatives of South Moravian universities, representatives of commercial companies and start-ups or investors. It is a very varied and inspiring environment full of ideas, willingness to share experiences and also to establish cooperation," explains Kateřina Nováková, who is involved in the Czech Biobank Network at MMCI.

And what is BBMRI.cz and biobanking? It is a national research infrastructure called the Czech Biobank Network, which brings together 8 biobanks across the Czech Republic. Biobanking is the long-term archiving of human biological material under accredited or certified conditions. The coordinator since the very beginning, i.e. since 2010, is the Masaryk Memorial Cancer Institute. The archived material is provided only with the consent of the donor, which includes both patients with various diagnoses (oncological, rheumatological or hematological disorders, etc.) and healthy individuals.

The aim of the Velvet Innovation meetup was to introduce BBMRI.cz and to raise awareness about the availability of human biological material or data, thus enabling students, scientists or companies to verify and validate their laboratory knowledge on real complex samples, which should also help to accelerate the transfer of this knowledge into practice. "We believe that this will attract experts not only in biomedical fields, but also in analytical, diagnostic or new drug development and application fields," hopes Kateřina Nováková.
Watch the recording of the event (minute 5:49-8:30).
You can learn more about the Bank of Biological Material in detail in our podcast What do you think, Doctor?

Supported by LM2023033, BBMRInv CZ.02.01.01/00/23_015/0008196