NRS-Biobank Catalogue

The NRS biobank and data catalogue is finally online.

It took a while to finalize the last details. As everyone knows it takes a lot of effort to generate patient data and to sample patient materials for research. Very often the biomaterials are not all used for a specific project and then stored in a biobank for further use. In fact it is an obligation for us as a research community to make maximum use of patient data and biomaterials in the research. This is also a basis for so-called FAIR use of data (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable; see also https://www.dtls.nl/fair-data/fair-data/  ), as many of you will know. A big advantage also is that forces can be joined as many research questions cannot be answered with single relatively small database and biobank materials presently available on one specific site. On the other hand every research group that collected the data and the biomaterials spent a lot of effort and likely still also wants to use at least part of the data and biobank materials themselves. The aim of the NRS biobank and data catalogue is to make only available to our lung research community that data and biomaterials are present, to let potential collaborators know what is present and how to find you. As a research group you always will have the final say whether you want to collaborate and under what conditions and in the catalogue you will not give away essential data (have a look for yourself what’s in there).

But…. of course the success of such a catalogue is fully dependent on whether all lung research groups make their collections known. We may suppose that as a lung research community we all agree that in the end we do our work for the benefit of the patients, so we trust that everyone will make this contribution tot the catalogue. To do so please fill out the Excel sheet and send it to Wim Timens (w.timens@umcg.nl).