Forum drills into biobanking

Two online forums--on biobanking and stem cells--have launched on the iBridge Network.

"We hope to create discussion spaces for researchers and industry experts to deep dive into specific topics and provide a way for people to collaborate." says Lesa Mitchell, director of the iBridge Network, in an announcement.

Despite the promise of biobanking, iBridge says, no standardized collection, storage and quality control procedures exist. Nor does a central repository for ongoing work.

The U.S. is currently home to some 179 biobanks holding specimens from 345,000 donors, says a report from Business Insights. Increased cooperation to further their progress is currently hampered by scientific and political barriers. Still, he falling cost of genomic technologies is expanding the scale and scope of biobanking research.

The iBridge stem cell forum has launched but was not in use as of August 23.

- here's the link to the biobanking forum
- see the Business Insights report announcement