The future of biobanking in Europe: Searching for answers to the ethical and legal challenges of human tissue research
Wednesday January 19th 2011

The Tiss.EU project (www.tisseu.org) deals with the ethical and legal challenges of human tissue research in the European Member States plus Switzerland. To this end, the project gathers and compares national legislative instruments and ethical guidelines with the help of external experts and makes these data available to the public in a database. As the overall aim, the project will outline emerging convergences as well as persisting differences in the countries’ regulative approaches. These findings are meant to culminate in a recommendation document for possible ethical and legal guidelines in the interests of European-wide convergence and harmonisation in the field of human tissue and biobank research.

Organised by: Department for Medical Ethics and History of Medicine Göttingen University PD Dr Christian Lenk, Dr Katharina Beier in cooperation with Dr Nils Hoppe (Centre for Ethics and Law in the Life Sciences, Leibniz Universität Hannover)

For the discussion of the project’s findings, the project partners are pleased to invite contributions to the Final International Conference of the Tiss.EU project in Göttingen (January 19-21, 2011) on the following issues:

·Â Â Â Â Â Â  What are current practical approaches in ethics and law to the protection of donors’, patients’ and researchers’ interests?

·Â Â Â Â Â Â  What are current national or supranational approaches to the regulation of human tissue and biobank research? 

·Â Â Â Â Â Â  What are the odds for a future European-wide harmonisation of human tissue and biobank regulations? How far is harmonisation in this field desirable/feasible?

·Â Â Â Â Â Â  What are the most pertinent challenges to privacy and confidentiality in the field of human tissue research and how can these challenges be met?

·Â Â Â Â Â Â  What are the ethical and legal challenges deriving from the commercialisation of human tissue biobanks and what could be potential solutions?

·Â Â Â Â Â Â  How can vulnerable populations in the field of human tissue research be protected?

 

The conference language will be English. Presentations should not extend 20 minutes. Confirmed key-note speakers are, amongst others, Judit Sándor (Budapest), Søren Holm (Manchester), Kurt Zatloukal (Graz), Graeme Laurie (Edinburgh), Maurizio Salvi (Bruxelles), Bjørn Hofmann (Oslo) and Margit Sutrop (Tartu). The reasonable costs for travel and accommodation for invited speakers will be covered by the organisers. The conference is open to the public and can be attended by interested academics.

 

Venue: University Medical Center Göttingen, Germany
Cost: The conference fee for visitors is 30.00 € (or, including conference dinner, 70.00 €).Please send an abstract of your proposed presentation (no later than 15th November 2010) to: Dr Katharina Beier Tiss.EU Project Officer Email: kbeier@gwdg.de Tel.: 0049-551-394184 Fax: 0049-551-399554
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