News

The first step to the realisation of the new Swedish national IT strategy has been taken. The delivery of the national biobank register by Software Point will be finalized this spring, half a year earlier than originally planned.

The biobank project will be presented at the Vitalis conference in Gothenburg Sweden 21 - 23 April, in which Software Point is participating as a speaker partner. Ola Gustafson from Software Point and the project leader Bent Krottler representing the Swedish counties will present the biobank register for biobank samples, which is called NAT-RBR, in a speech on April 22 at 14:00 – 14:30.

"We have worked faster than planned and the system can be taken into use already in a few months time" tells Ola Gustafson. The material in the register includes information about the counties' biobank samples and biobank documentation. On the total it will cover around 80 million tissue samples - blood and other samples of human origin, the oldest dating back to 1930's. Every year around 7 to 8 million new samples will be registered in the system. The samples will be stored in several locations around the country.

"Thanks to NAT-RBR it will be easier for researchers and other authorised persons to trace the location and the form of a single sample. In many cases the samples have been for example divided into several samples " tells Gustafson.

The second important aspect in the registery conserns the handling of consent given by sample donors. It regulates i.e. the areas where the samples may be used. For all samples which are stored a consent from the donor is required.

The biobank register is expected to have a remarkable impact on research, medical treatment of patients and diagnostic testing.

Visit Vitalis 2009 web site