The final meeting of the European Blue Biobank (EBB) project analyzes the results obtained since the launch of this initiative in 2017.
The relaunch of the Interreg European Blue Biobank (EBB) project, led by the Marine Research Center of the University of Vigo (CIM), enters its final phase with the closing meeting being held this week in Porto. This event, which started today, Tuesday, brings together representatives from the two main European biological resource infrastructures: the European Marine Biological Resource Centre (EMBRC-ERIC) and the Microbial Resource Research Infrastructure (MIRRI-ERIC), along with members of the consortium. This is a unique opportunity to review the main results of the project; explore possible collaborations and synergies between both entities; implement improvements indicated by the Nagoya Protocol and the Access & Benefit Sharing (ABS) regulations regarding biobank services and tools; and advance the promotion of the main management tools resulting from the EBB. Specifically, the participants are working on the EBB TRACE database, a catalog of marine biological resources, and the EBB TRACK tool, an instrument for the provision of macroorganisms in the service of culture collection management for biobank operations.
Tomorrow, Wednesday, a workshop will take place in which international scientists will be able to learn about the EBB project and the advances achieved by it, in addition to participating in a debate on the relevance of the role of biological resource centers within the framework of the Access and Benefit Sharing (ABS) regulations. For this, in addition to face-to-face attendance, the workshop will be broadcast live (YouTube and Vimeo), thus becoming an open window to the international scientific community.
The principal investigator of the project and director of the Toralla Marine Science Station (Ecimat) of the CIM, José Manuel García, highlights that this meeting “is fundamental to share with the main consortia of European biological resource infrastructures the work carried out to date” and that it represents “a new commitment by the CIM to excellence at the national and European level as a partner of the European EMBRC infrastructure”. He also pointed out that “the workshop is a unique opportunity for those people who work with biobanks around the world to learn about the advances made so far in their management, which represents a commitment to knowledge transfer and international collaboration in order to improve for the future”.
Two pan-European consortia
Representatives of the two main European biological resource infrastructures are participating in today’s meeting. On the one hand, EMBRC-ERIC, a pan-European research infrastructure network that aims to make available to the international scientific community and blue economy entities access to biological resources and marine ecosystems in Europe. It currently provides access to services and technological platforms in 70 marine stations and institutes distributed in nine European countries. The University of Vigo, through the Toralla Marine Science Station of the CIM, is one of the three Spanish representatives in this node.
On the other hand, there is MIRRI-ERIC, the pan-European research infrastructure for the conservation, systematic research, supply and valorisation of microbial resources and biodiversity. It brings together more than 50 microbial mastery centres, culture collections and research institutes from ten European countries.
Six years of work
The EBB project, which began in 2017 led by the CIM, is the first global initiative for transnational coordination of marine biobanks and responds to a demand from the scientific community that, to carry out its work, needs to collect samples all over the world or request loans from museums, universities or marine stations. This process can be complex, since each country has its own rules and regulations, which makes it necessary to develop new technologies and common protocols for the ex-situ maintenance, that is, outside their natural environments, of marine biological resources and to harmonize existing ones, so that the different biobanks work in a coordinated manner under the seal of the European Center for Marine Biological Resources.
The relaunch of the EBB project was funded with over 330,000 euros and aimed to improve transnational coordination of the main European marine biobanks and collections. During the months of work, representatives of marine stations and business clusters from Spain, Portugal, France, Ireland and Norway managed to create a database, an online catalogue for searching for marine biological resources, a tool for managing sampling data, a good practice manual and a guide to complying with Access and Benefit Sharing (ABS) legislation.
Source: DUVI
