Have you watched the movie “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks”? I watched it over the weekend and highly recommend it to anyone working with biospecimens. In 2010, Rebecca Skloot published The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, a compelling look at Henrietta Lacks’ story, her impact on medical science, and important bioethical issues. That book became the basis for the HBO/Harpo film by the same name, which was released in April 2017. Henrietta Lacks was a woman who unknowingly donated her cells at Hopkins in 1951, beginning what was the first, and, for many years, the only human cell line able to reproduce indefinitely – popularly known as the “HeLa cells”. The HeLa cells were vital for developing the polio vaccine; uncovered secrets of cancer, viruses, and the atom bomb’s effects; helped lead to important advances like in vitro fertilization, cloning, and gene mapping; and have been bought and sold by the billions. The movie captures the beauty and drama of scientific discovery, as well as its human consequences.
Moving on, here is your monthly pick of biobanking buzz from the OpenSpecimen team. Seats are fast filling up for our Annual Community Meetings in USA and Australia. Register ASAP to book your seats.
Your monthly pick of biobanking buzz from the OpenSpecimen team. We are excited to announce our upcoming Annual Community Meetings in USA and Australia. Register ASAP to book your seats.
Fresh of the Press
- UK Biobank requires Earth’s Geneticists To Cooperate, Not Compete.
- Patient perspectives about decisions to share medical data and biospecimens for research.
- Australia’s Brain Clot Bank opens in search of answers for stroke.
- University College London Hospitals (UCLH) launches a new open platform that matches patients to clinical trials.
- One Year After Launch, NIH’s All of Us Hits Key Milestones.
- The Childhood Cancer Data Initiative (CCDI) aims to link data from all pediatric cancer patients in the U.S.
Biobank Job Alerts
- Manager, Biobank Core Facility, University of South Alabama, USA
- Head Sample Bank – Oncology, GSK, Collegeville, Pennsylvania, USA
- Biorepository Technician, Precision Medicine Group, Maryland, USA
- Biobank Technician, UCLA Health, California, USA
- Laboratory Quality and Training Officer, UK Biobank, Manchester, UK
- Health Informatician, Wellcome Sanger Institute, Cambridgeshire, UK
- Biorepository Project Coordinator, Medpace, Leuven, Belgium
- Biobank Manager, Agency for Science, Technology, and Research (A*STAR), Singapore
Upcoming Events
| 2nd Annual GU Biobank Conference | Oct 4th – Toronto |
| European Biobanking Week | Oct 8th-11th – Germany |
| ISBER Regional Conference | Nov 4th-5th – Minneapolis |
| SMi’s 9th Annual Conference Biobanking | Sep 25th-26th – London |
| Australasian Biobanking Network (ABNA) | Oct 16th-18th – Cairns |
OpenSpecimen News
Case study: Oxford biobank replaced their legacy database with OpenSpecimen to manage their biospecimens better.
v6.2 release: OpenSpecimen v6.2 was released on Sep 15th with new features, bug fixes, and improvements. Read the announcement here.
OSCON’19
| OpenSpecimen annual community meet (Australia) | Cairns, Australia, 15th Oct, 2019 | Register now |
| OpenSpecimen annual community meet (USA) | Miami, USA, 11th-12th Nov, 2019 | Register now |
| Super-user Training (USA) | Miami, USA, 13th-14th Nov, 2019 | Register now |