On November 22, 2019, Prof. Dr. Neşe Atabey, national coordinator of BBMRI.tr, gave a seminar titled “The Role of Biobanks in Medical Research and European Research Infrastructures: BBMRI-ERIC” on the campus of İzmir Katip Çelebi University Faculty of Medicine. The seminar was attended by the provincial health director, the chief physician of the hospital and the former rector of the university. As a result of this seminar, biobank awareness was raised and the significance of biobanks in research was explained. Moreover, the positive effects of BBMRI-ERIC guided harmonization on both research quality and the national economy was underlined.
In August 2019, the Health Institutes of Turkey (TÜSEB) opened a call for “Applied Projects in the Field of Personalised and Translational Medicine”. Two projects which the BBMRI.tr team contributed to (Biological Sampling for Neurological, Metabolic and Degenerative Diseases; The Turkey HCC Biobank and Its Molecular Characteristics) have been accepted.
In order to establish a comprehensive and sustainable rare diseases research ecosystem in our country, Rare Diseases Research Information Day was held on June 11, 2019 by TÜBİTAK’s Bilateral and Multilateral Relations Department at Acibadem University Kerem Aydınlar Campus / Istanbul, ACURare. The national coordinator of BBMRI.tr Prof. Dr. Neşe Atabey delivered a speech titled “European Research Infrastructures: BBMRI-ERIC Rare Diseases Program”.
The 3rd Çukurova Hepatocellular Carcinoma Congress was held between 23-25 February 2019 in Adana. A workshop was organised with the participation of the TKAD Hepatobiliary Cancer Study Group to promote the Turkey HCC Biobank project and create a roadmap. Prof. Dr. Nese ATABEY, the national coordinator of BBMRI.tr, gave a presentation titled “The Role of Biobanks in Cancer Research and the Turkey HCC Genome Project”. As a result of the workshop, the implementation of the Turkey HCC Biobanking and Turkey HCC Genome Project in 2019 was identified as the main target.
An international workshop on “Biobanking for Rare Diseases” and a symposium on “Bridging Biobanks in MENA Countries to Promote Research and Healthcare” took place in Izmir, Turkey between 2-4 May 2018.
Both meetings were funded by the “Biobanking and Biomolecular Resources Infrastructure in European Research Infrastructures” (BBMRI-ERIC) through its European Commission Horizon 2020 project “BBMRI-ERIC-ADOPT”, and were organized by BBMRI.tr, the Turkish node of BBMRI.
The event hosted by IBG (Izmir Biomedicine and Genome Center) brought together a total of 132 participants and experts from 14 different countries. These meetings aim to establish and strengthen existing collaborative biobanking networks in MENA countries, as well as to facilitate their integration with pan-European counterparts.
The symposium started with the welcome speech of Prof. Mehmet Ozturk, director of IBG, and Prof. Nese Atabey, national coordinator of BBMRI.tr. In the first session, experts from BBMRI-ERIC shared their knowledge on critical aspects of biobanking such as principles of biobanking in human biospecimens, ethical concepts, quality management systems and database management security for biobanks. In the afternoon session, Rania Labib (Egypt), Imane Cherkaoui (Morocco), Maher Sughayer (Jordan), Ada Al-Qunaibet (Saudi Arabia), Sibel Ugur Iseri (Turkey), Said Ismail (Qatar), Yosr Hamdi (Tunisia) shared their experiences on the establishment of a modern biobank.
Day 2 started with problem-based learning (PBL) sessions. With the guidance of their tutors and using published papers and guidelines to aid them, 5 different groups of 10 participants discussed some examples of challenges biobanks face, as well as the management of potential risks related to quality control, ethics and disasters on real-life cases.
In the afternoon session, speakers with expertise in different areas talked about the real workflow in a biobank and shared their experiences on taking informed consent, sample registration and processing, quality management and the access and distribution of samples. iPSC biobanking, cancer organoids and Patient Derived Xenograft (PDX) models used in drug discovery were among the most inspiring and interesting talks of the day.
The symposium started with the welcome speech of Prof. Murat Ozgoren, ESFRI delegate of Turkey. Then, Prof. Ozgoren gave a joint interactive speech with Dr. Dominic Sobczak, ESFRI Executive Secretary, via videoconference about the networks of national and international research infrastructures, funds for projects and establishment strategies that gained wide interest from participants. This was followed by an inspiring speech by Prof. Kurt Zatloukal, BBMRI-Austria, about the impact of digital pathology on biobanking. In the afternoon session, experts from different regions of the MENA shared experiences on their national genome projects.
In the final session, the establishment of a MENA biobanking network was discussed. The panelists addressed some critical questions such as which field the Consortium should primarily focus on, which funding sources could be used, and so on. The consensus was that it is essential to create a BBMRI-MENA Consortium, and that future efforts should focus on its planning.
The second BBMRI-tr multicenter meeting was hold in IBG-Izmir at July, 23.2015. Professor Meral ÖZGÜÇ from Hacettepe University Medical School gave the seminar about the biobanking in Hacettepe University.
Professor Meral ÖZGÜÇ is pioneer scientist of the research and discovery work of biobanking in turkey that led to the understanding of the most suitable way to establish biobanking network in turkey. Professor Meral Özgüç has 84SCI articles in the area of Human Genetics/Genomics/Rare Diseases with 1832 citations.She is member of Euroean,Middle Eastern and African Society for Biopreservation, Biobanking (ESBB), National Board member of The European Association for Predictive,Preventive & Personalised Medicine (EPMA) and Public Population Project in Genomics-P3G.
Hacettepe University Medical School was established in 1967 on the foundations of a pediatric hospital that began operating in 1957. Due to its high rate of consanguinity, Turkey has an pportunity to offer scientific contributions in the field of genomics of autosomal recessive diseases by defining new phenotypes and identifying new genes and relevant pathways. Against this background, funding was obtained from the Technological Development Fund of Turkey (TTGV) in 1995 with financial support through a grant from the World Bank to establish a biobank for rare diseases. Between 1995 and 2006, the Bank was supported by the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey and since that date the infrastructure is sustained by Hacettepe University. Families are referred to the biobank after clinical examination by respective departments. A document of medical and personal information together with the informed consent form accompanies samples, signed by the medical attendee and the principle medical doctor responsible for the unit. By 2013,the biological registry holds a total number of DNA samples (31.000) from 5700 families and 1200 cells/tissues (lymphoblastoid cell lines, fibroblast, muscle, brain and other biopsy specimens). The main contributions to the DNA registry are neurological (46%), metabolic (19%), nephrological (15%), gastroenterological (9%), immunological/haematological (5%), chest diseases (3%) and dermatological disorders (3%). The repository of the DNA/Cell Bank has facilitated collaborations leading to the identification of new disease genes.
During the seminar, Professor Meral ÖZGÜÇ introduce the biobanking history, development, and the critical points to establish the biobanking worknet. Professor Neşe Atabey introduced the BBMRI, the duty of national nodes, the fellowing plan of BBMRI-tr, and the difficult we face currently. Professor Mehmet ÖZTÜRK attent the meeing.
The first BBMRI-tr multicenter meeting was hold in IBG-Izmir at May.29.2015. It brings together specialists in molecular pathology, genetics, medicine, computer engineering.
Prof.Dr.Ugur Ozbek is the director of Institute of Experimental Medicine (DETAE) in Istanbul university. He is a a pioneer scientist in biobanking in turkey. He started the first rare disease biobanking in Turkey, who have sufficent experiences on national and International policy of biobanking, ethical and legal and social Issues of biobanking in Turkey.
After an introductory tour at iBG-izmir facilities and labs, and biobanking facility, Professor Neşe Atabey introduced the BBMRI, the duty of national nodes, and the fellowing plan of BBMRI-tr. Professor Ugur Ozbek made a presentation about the biobank in DETAE, the structure, the database and the ethics issues. Assist. Prof. Can Küçük, Yavuz Oktay and Dr Izgi Kanat attended the meeting and reported their appropriate work.
It was agreed to hold such meetings regularly to share information and experience at the end of the meeting.
