Session Descriptions
The Programme Committee present the tracks and topics for EBW26.
Track One: Biobanking Without Borders: Connecting Biodiversity, Medicine, and Innovation
3A: Preserving Biodiversity: Challenges and Opportunities in Non-human Biobanking
Non-human biobanks—encompassing amongs others animal, plant, and microbial specimens—are essential for biodiversity conservation. They face challenges like ethical dilemmas, data standardization, and resource limitations. Yet, they offer opportunities for ecological restoration, agricultural resilience, and scientific innovation through advanced preservation, genomics, and global collaboration. This session highlights their unique role in advancing integrated health for humans, animals, and ecosystems.
5A: Enhancing Clinical Trials trough Biobank Integration
Discover how biobank integration transforms clinical trials by improving sample accessibility, data richness, and research efficiency. This session explores innovative strategies for leveraging biobanks to accelerate drug development, enable personalized medicine, and enhance trial design, ultimately driving better patient outcomes and scientific breakthroughs.d streamlining research processes.
6A: Biobanks as Local Hubs: Interfaces and Facilitators
This session explores the evolving role of biobanks as dynamic local hubs in biomedical research. Learn how biobanks serve as interfaces between researchers, healthcare providers, and communities, facilitating data sharing, sample access, and collaboration. Discover strategies to enhance their impact on translational research and innovation ecosystems.
8A: Unlocking Health Insights from Donated Human Tissues
This session explores the ethical, technical, and logistical challenges involved in the collection and management of donated human tissues, including both post-mortem and living donations. Topics include consent processes, data integration, and governance frameworks that ensure responsible use of biological materials. Experts will share methodologies and case studies illustrating how these biobanks support scientific discovery and deepen understanding of health and disease across diverse research domains.
11A: Inside the Biobank: Organisational Structures, Strategies, and Success Stories
Dive into the inner workings of biobanks and discover how organizational models and strategic planning shape their success. This session showcases diverse approaches to governance, sustainability, and stakeholder engagement, illustrated through real-world examples that highlight innovation, resilience, and impact in biobanking practice.
Track Two: Ethics, Regulation, and Digital Innovation: Navigating the Future of Biobanking
3B: Ethics, Regulation, and Digital Innovation: Navigating the Future of Biobanking
This session will present the evolving landscape of EU regulations for the future of biobanking, with a focus on their ethical, legal, and societal implications (ELSI). Participants will explore the latest legislative initiatives at the EU level. The session will also highlight diverse national responses, offering comparative insights into how member states are interpreting and integrating these changes.
5B: AI-powered Enrichment of Biobanks
This session will focus on the Artificial Intelligence (AI) solution for integrating and analyzing complex datasets. It will present challenges, such as managing the growing complexity of diverse data sources and optimizing machine learning algorithms to effectively process and interpret huge amounts of data. This session will explore various barriers, while highlighting pioneering approaches and real-world applications that demonstrate AI’s transformative potential to revolutionize biomedical research and patient care.archers.
6B: Secure, Fair and Smart: Best Practices for Biobank Data Integration
This session will explore best practices for protection of donor privacy while enabling seamless data sharing through clear agreements and adherence to evolving legal frameworks. By integrating clinical information, imaging, and biosamples, biobanks unlock enormous potential for scientific discovery and healthcare innovation. Participants will gain insights from academic and commercial initiatives that demonstrate practical approaches to integrate biobanking workflows within healthcare and health-related data systems.
8B: Balancing Ethics and Innovation: ELSI in Biobanking
This session will bring complex ethical, legal, and social implications (ELSI) that shape biobanking practices and influence public trust. It will show how integrating ethics directly into biobanking processes as a core component can drive responsible innovation. Participants will gain insight into strategies for navigating regulatory landscapes, addressing social concerns, and fostering collaborative environments that enhance both scientific discovery and ethical integrity.
11B: Pediatric Biobanking
This session will showcase the specialized considerations for collecting, processing, and storing biospecimens from children, including ethical issues, consent complexities, and age-specific biological variables. Experts will share innovative approaches and best practices for ensuring sample quality and integrity while protecting the rights and wellbeing of young donors. Attendees will gain insights into how pediatric biobanks are advancing research in childhood diseases, developmental biology, and personalized medicine to improve health outcomes for the next generation.
Track Three: Fit-for-Purpose Biobanking: Enhancing sample quality from collection to analysis
3C: Fit-for-Purpose Biobanking: Enhancing sample quality from collection to analysis
This session will present the next generation of biobanking technologies, from automation and digital tracking to integrated data systems and innovative technologies, along with the complex realities of implementing them. Through expert insights and practical case studies, it will show how biobanks are navigating technical obstacles, regulatory demands, and evolving standards, while unlocking new opportunities to enhance sample quality, accessibility, and long-term value.
5C: Tools and Processes for Quality Implementation and Use Cases
This session will focus on the practical tools, methodologies, and processes that support robust quality management systems. Speakers will show how interlaboratory comparisons, proficiency testing, and validation strategies are being applied in real-world settings to strengthen reproducibility and data confidence. Through hands-on use cases, attendees will gain insights into overcoming common pitfalls, implementing effective quality controls, and adopting innovative solutions that support sample and data integrity across the biobanking lifecycle.
6C: Ensuring Excellence: Elevating Data Quality in Biobanking
This session will explore advanced approaches to assessing and enhancing the quality of data associated with biobanks. Participants will learn about current frameworks for capturing data, its quality metrics and metadata, enabling researchers to confidently select and utilize datasets that meet scientific standards. Through presented examples and new tools, the session aims to empower the community to prevent errors, improve study reproducibility, and run impactful, data-driven medical discoveries.
8C: Mastering Pre-Analytics: Key to Reliable Biobanking and Biomedical Research
This session will highlight the pre-analytical phase of biobank workflows, where factors like collection, handling, and storage set the stage for downstream success. Experts will present common pre-analytical challenges and demonstrate how careful control at this stage can enhance the value of biospecimens and/or cellular models used across biobanking, pathology, and clinical research. Attendees will gain a deeper understanding of how optimizing pre-analytics directly impacts test performance, reproducibility, and the overall integrity of biological data.
8C: Special Samples, Special Needs
This session opens the stage for any special samples, sampling methods or processing techniques that can facilitate innovative research needs and strategies. The focus will be broad and include, among others, novel or rarely collected materials as well as home-based data collection and sampling.
11C: Samples Ready for Multi-Omics Research
This session will show how biobanks are adapting their collection, processing, and storage protocols to support the complex needs of genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, and metabolomics studies. Experts will also address the operational challenges of integrating multiple ‘omics’ workflows into routine biobanking practices, while ensuring compliance with clinical standards and regulations such as IVDR. Attendees will gain practical insights into preparing high-quality biospecimens that enable comprehensive multi-omics analyses.
Track Four: Advancing Biobanking: Skills, Partnerships, and Sustainable Solutions for the Future
3D: Building Excellence: Developing Skills for Future Biobanking
Ensuring high-quality biobanks demands expertly trained personnel. This session highlights tailored education and training opportunities for the biobank community, covering all roles – from project managers to technical staff handling samples and data. Gain insights into upskilling pathways that enhance competence and drive excellence across biobank operations.
5D: Repurposing Drug Network RePo4EU
Description coming soon.
6D: Patient-Centric Biobanking: Strategies for Engagement and Participation
This session highlights patients as experts-by-experience who lead innovative research and initiate biobanks addressing emerging needs. It explores best practices to make biobank-driven research accessible, relatable, and actionable – empowering diverse communities and fostering meaningful, sustained citizen engagement in advancing health innovation.
8D: Synergizing Resources: Public–Private Collaboration in Biobanking Infrastructure and Research
This session explores public–private collaborations in biobanking, focusing on pooling resources, expertise, and advanced technology to build sustainable, integrated research platforms. These strategic partnerships enhance innovation, increase visibility, foster cross-sector cooperation, and create lasting value for health research at both national and European levels, ultimately accelerating scientific discovery and improving patient outcomes.
11D: Eco-Friendly Green Biobanking: Innovations and Solutions
This session explores eco-friendly biobanking innovations and circular economy approaches addressing sustainability beyond financial viability. Amid rising energy costs and the climate crisis, we’ll showcase impact assessments and solutions that reduce environmental footprints, promoting greener, more resilient biobanks for the future of research and public health.
Special sessions
4: Pitch Your Innovative Idea
Pitch your innovative idea in 3 minutes. This opportunity is open to all stakeholders: biobankers, vendors, researchers, patients, and beyond. Whether it’s an innovative product, a novel solution, or a fresh concept, this is your chance to showcase ideas that can transform sample management, empower biobankers and researchers, and improve patient outcomes for a healthier future. Step up and make your vision heard!
9: Disease Domain-specific Biobanks
9A: Disease Domain-specific Biobanks – Rare Disease Insights
This session explores domain-specific biobanks for rare diseases, emphasizing the importance of cross-border collaboration and networks like the EuroBioBank (EBB). Discover innovative strategies for extensive sample collection, data integration, and (inter)national partnerships that drive research breakthroughs, improve diagnostics, and accelerate targeted therapy development for patients with rare conditions.
9B: Disease Domain-specific Biobanks – Oncology Insights
This session, organized with the International Society of Oncology and Biomarkers (ISOBM), highlights oncology biobanks and cross-disciplinary collaboration across oncology, pathology, radiology, and molecular medicine. It showcases innovative approaches to biobank management and biomarker discovery that advance precision medicine, accelerate cancer research, and drive breakthroughs in diagnosis, treatment, and personalized therapies.
9C: Disease Domain-specific Biobanks – Neuroscience Insights
This session highlights biobanks advancing research on neurological and psychiatric disorders. Explore innovative methods for collecting, managing, and sharing samples and data across diagnostics and research. Learn how these biobanks drive molecular insights into diseases with often unclear underpinnings and limited diagnostic markers.
9D: Disease Domain-specific Biobanks – Infectious Disease Insights
This session explores infectious disease biobanks’ critical role in pandemic preparedness and response amid globalization. Discover strategies for collecting, managing, and sharing biological samples and data to track emerging pathogens, support vaccine development, and strengthen global collaboration – advancing research and public health in an interconnected world.