International Biobanking Experts at BBMRI.at Course in Graz

International biobank experts from 6 different countries met in Graz from 8th to 10th February 2017 in order to devote themselves to quality control in samples. These errors cause enormous costs in hospitals and are also responsible for non-reproducible research results.

Preanalytics - a source of trouble

Preanalytical errors are responsible for up to 70 percent of all problems in laboratory diagnostics. These errors cause enormous costs in hospitals and are also responsible for non-reproducible research results.

New Quality Standards

In order to significantly reduce sources of error in the future, the European Standardization Institute (CEN) has issued CEN / TC140 new technical specifications for molecular analytical in vitro diagnostic procedures (CEN/TS), in close cooperation with the Institute of Pathology of the Med Uni Graz. The new guidelines are also the basis for future ISO standards and become increasingly important for biobanks and diagnostic laboratories (at hospitals).

BBMRI.at Course

At the moment these CEN/TS are still largely unknown. Therefore, the course focused on introducing these standards to the participants and on how these European pre-analytical standards can be implemented in practice. Each participant worked with a sample, isolated RNA and subsequently evaluated it using various quality control methods – all steps were performed according to the CEN/TS standards.

In addition to the BBMRI.at partner Institute of Pathology /Med Uni Graz who was responsible for the practical part, Andrea Wutte from BBMRI-ERIC, Ingrid Walter and Helmuth Haslacher from the BBMRI.at partners Vet Biobank and Med UniWien Biobank contributed with lectures on blood pre-analytics and implementation of the CEN/TS. Participates had also a chance to attend a presentation by Berthold Huppertz about Biobank Graz and a guided tour through one of Europe’s largest biobanks.