The biobanking interest group is concerned with issues related to tissue
banking for clinical trials in Australia. COSA formally began its
research into the need for nationally coordinated biobanking from the cancer cooperative trials groups (CCTGs) in 2008 under the leadership of Dr Nik Zeps (Chair of the Cancer Biology Group) and Professor David Goldstein (past president of COSA).
COSA’s
work began in April 2008, thanks to unrestricted grants from Roche and
Novartis, with a short survey of CCTG biobanking activities, followed by
a one-day stakeholder workshop in October 2008. The national workshop
identified the emerging need for a national coordinated approach to
biospecimen collection and storage and included a discussion of the
major barriers to such an approach in Australia.
In August 2009
to help define a national model for coordinated biobanking for clinical
trials, Deloittes was engaged to assist COSA with progressing this
initiative. In November 2009 COSA held a national solutions workshop
immediately prior to the Annual Scientific Meeting with attendance of the national CCTGs and key stakeholders including Cancer Australia,
Biobank managers, consumers and cancer researchers. The report
'Developing a national approach to biobanking 2010' (pdf, 799kb) is the
outcome of these extensive national stakeholder consultations,
suggesting a realistic framework in moving the national biobanking
agenda forward.
Developing a national approach to biobanking 2010 (pdf, 799kb)
Tissue banking workshop report 2008 (pdf, 144kb)
