Biobanks - Is Lithuania Ready For Them?

Currently a large part of politicians, economists and lawyers are working hard to ensure that a recent bank bankruptcy story would not repeat itself. Quite often people associate the term "bank" with instability, possibility to lose something or lack of transparent governing. Maybe this is the reason why there are no biobanks in Lithuanian which are wide-spread in the EU and other countries of the world. But maybe the lack of knowledge causes such situation because people often are afraid of things they don't know.

What is a biobank?

There are various definitions of biobanks. One version says that biobank is a well-organized system which stores and manages human biological samples and medical documents for the sole purpose - to achieve scientific research goals. Shortly speaking, a biobank is a place with special tanks where samples of human organs, their parts, tissues, cells or their components, taken from the human body, are stored. All these components have a general name – biological material.

Some people may find the idea of biobanks strange but only this kind of storing and managing system would allow Lithuania to develop new research of cancer, genetic and other diseases, therefore it would serve the interest of the whole society and of each Lithuanian citizen. The purpose of a biobank is to accumulate material for future research after new technologies will be developed or new ways of research will be found, new symptoms of diseases will be discovered, etc. Things that were unclear 20 years ago are easily explainable at present, so we can only guess what kind of possibilities we will have after several decades.

Applicable laws contradict the essence of biobanks' functioning

Under the applicable laws all biomedical researches are conducted only with a written consent of the subject of the research. Before giving the consent, the subject is informed in a form which is comprehendible for him/her and is signed by him/her, about the aim, plan and methods of a particular biomedical research and receives other important information. Biological materials are stored in biobanks and researches in most cases are not planned in advance, therefore there is no possibility to inform the subject who donates the biological material for scientific purposes about the precise details of the research. It is similar to blood donation – a donor does not ask a doctor to which patient his or her blood will be transfused.

Special consent of a person is...