The Human Biomedical Research Act (HBRA) of Singapore regulates all research that involves human biospecimen in Singapore. Institutions or individuals aiming to establish a biobank under SingHealth must adopt best practices from established biobanks and ISBER. Recently, the team from SingHealth published a poster explaining the “Best Practices for Establishing a Biobank in Singapore Research Institution.”
Stages of establishing a biobank in Singapore:
- Registration of the biobank- application submission to IRB, who then forward it to the Ministry of Health (MOH)
- Governance- Establishing the biobank governance framework. Involves the selection of Director, Steering Committee, Manager and laboratory staff
- Workflow- Establishing the workflow for sample acquisition and utilization
- Compliance- Determining strategies to ensure HBRA compliance, consent requirements, operational requirements and reporting violations to the MOH
Singapore General Hospital (SingHealth) is one of the earliest adopters of OpenSpecimen. They have been using OpenSpecimen at an institutional level to harmonize specimen data across all biobanks and their subsidiaries. Download the poster to learn more:
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