BBMRI-ERIC Webinar – Biobanks and registries – what’s the difference?

Title: Biobanks and registries – what’s the difference?

Speaker: Dr Mary Wang, Fondazione Telethon in Italy

Date and Time: 28 November 2019,  14:00-15:00 (Central European Time)

Summary: Biobanks and registries are both essential resources that collect and manage participant biological materials, associated data and relevant clinical or health information. However, what are the differences between these two resources? When speaking about patient data, biobanks and registries are often referred to at the same time. Can they be considered as the same thing? How are they used to support research?

The aim of this webinar is to present the value of biobanks and registries for biomedical research. The two resources will be described and compared for their similarities and differences. Examples of how they enable different types of research will be illustrated during the webinar. In addition, a prospective on how biobanks and registries can work in synergy to accelerate biomedical research will be discussed.

About the Speaker: Dr Mary Wang is a Scientific Partnership Manager at Fondazione Telethon, Italy. At Telethon, she is also the Biobank Program Manager, advocating for rare disease (RD) biobanking and provide strategic support for “Telethon Network of Genetic Biobanks”. Currently, Mary is involved in the European Joint Programme on Rare Diseases as leader for biobank training and surveying RD community on research needs. Between 2014-2018 she worked on RD-Connect, and contributed to the development of flagship biobank tools as a part of research infrastructure for RD. During the same period, she acted as the EuroBioBank network secretariat. Since 2019, Mary is actively contributing to operations of IRDiRC and planning of global roadmap. In addition, she represents Telethon in the ICPerMed Executive Committee. Prior to joining Telethon, Mary worked as a postdoctoral researcher in fields of genetics and immunoloy; she received her PhD in Cell Biology from University College London.

Missed our webinar? You can download the slides here.

You can watch the recording here.

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