Global research infrastructure for biobanking

2015-09-27

The University of the Western Cape in South Africa just hosted the first meeting of B3Africa – a Horizon2020 CSA Action to bridge European and African biobanking and biomedical research.

The partnership has two strategic aims: One is to create a harmonised ethical and legal framework between European and African partner institution. The second is to provide an "out-of-the-box" informatics solution for data management, processing and sharing that works with limited Internet access.

Jane Reichel is Professor of Administrative Law at Uppsala University and leads the ethical and legal work. According to her, a shared ethical and legal framework is necessary if the informatics platform is to fill its purpose and allow data and bio-resources to be shared between countries and continents.

B3Africa is co-ordinated by the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences. Partners include BBMRI-ERIC, Karolinska Institutet, Uppsala University, University of the Western Cape, Makerere University, Stellenbosch Universitt, International Agency for Research on Cancer , International Live Stock Research Institute, Medizinische Universitat Graz and the Institute of Human Virology Nigeria. More on www.b3africa.org.

by Josepine Fernow

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