On April 16, 2024 as a part of XXXI Russian Congress “Man and Medicine” a symposium on biobanking was held, dedicated to the 5th anniversary of National Association of Biobanks and Biobanking Specialists  (NASBio).

The symposium was opened by Oksana M. Drapkina (President of NASBio; Director, National Medical Research Center for Therapy and Preventive Medicine, Moscow; corresponding member, Russian Academy of Sciences) with congratulations on the 5th anniversary of NASbio.

The welcoming speech was delivered by Academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences Alexander L. Ginzburg. He wished the participants successful work. He emphasized that biobanking nowadays is an integral part of biomedical research, allowing to solve the issues of biosafety and development of new drugs and diagnostic systems. Alexander Leonidovich reminded that the creation of extensive collections of sera from the population of our country will allow timely detection of new pathogenic microorganisms and respond to their introduction into our lives by creating vaccines and medicines. In addition, it is only on such collections of population serum can the effectiveness of vaccination be assessed. He also noted the importance of having developed collections of biomaterials for the creation and validation of modern methods of diagnosis and treatment of cancer.

Oksana M. Drapkina made a presentation on the challenges facing the development of biobanking. Oksana Mikhailovna shared her views and experience regarding the difficulties and inconsistencies that one has to deal with in the planning of scientific and medical research related to the use of biomaterials and in the practical implementation of the results obtained. To solve many issues related to the efficiency of biobanking resource application, it is necessary to create a legislative framework, develop a unified informed consent, organize a network of biobanks in Russia with a unified information platform and others.

Then in the program of the symposium a film-interview was shown with the participation of NASBio members from different scientific and medical centers and universities of Russia. Academicians of the Russian Academy of Sciences S.A. Boitsov, O.M. Drapkina, A.L. Gintsburg convincingly expressed the necessity of biobanking for effective solution of both fundamental problems of medical science and practical health care. Representatives of NASBio member organizations told about the practical benefits of participation in the community at the moment, and how they see the development of biobanking in Russia in the coming years.

In his report Dr. Alexey N. Meshkov, Director of NASBio, spoke about five years of the organization’s journey, achievements, the Association’s activities, the tasks that have been accomplished together and the plans for the future. Organization of conferences, writing a monograph, development of GOST standards, glossary, four special issues on biobanking of the Cardiovascular Therapy and Prevention journal – is not a complete list of the activities presented by NASBio.

Vice-President of NASBio, Dr. Andrey S. Glotov, in the report “What we can do together“, recalled that 2024 was declared the year of the family in our country and drew a parallel with NASBio “family”, in which goals are achieved through joint efforts. He outlined the great value of biobanks and possible ways of interaction between biobanks and consumers of their services in order to build a continuous process from biobank collections to their use by research centers and the introduction of new methods of diagnosis and treatment in health care.

NASBio Executive Director Artem I. Muraviev in his report “NASBio members – current status and development potential” analyzed the opportunities for the development of interaction between members within the Association and with similar communities in the world. An example of such interaction is the cooperation agreement between NASBio and the Biobank Branch, China Medical Biotech Association (BBCMBA) concluded in early April. In addition, he expressed his opinion on the need to involve organizations and institutions of various departments related to biomedicine in the Association and to create a direction that includes biobanks of non-human origin. Artem Igorevich emphasized the importance of further promotion of the biobanking system in Russia as a part of the overall process of biomedicine development in our country.

The series of presentations was completed by the report of NASBio Vice–President Oleg Konstantinovich Granstrom “NASBIO and the practice of biobanking: synergy in building a model of cooperation with medical organizations.” He spoke about the practice of biobanking in cooperation with medical organizations of different levels and types, about synergy in building these relationships and emerging difficulties and ways to resolve them, shared his vision of effective cooperation between biobanks and medical institutions.

The symposium was concluded with a positive discussion between all participants. The distinctive feature of this symposium among the previous six events within the framework of the congress “Man and Medicine” was a feeling of celebration and the desire to continue with enthusiasm the cause of biobanking for the benefit of health care in Russia.

The meeting of like-minded colleagues was held at a high professional level, there was an active exchange of information and opinions, the directions of further development of biobanking in Russia as a tool to improve the efficiency and quality of biomedical research and development were outlined.

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