The HUB-ICO-IDIBELL biobank was certified by the ISO 9001 standard in 2017. On June 13, an external entity, in this case AENOR, carried out the annual monitoring that guarantees the quality standards compliance and by which every three years renews the certification. According to the audit report, no non-compliance was detected, thus completing the renewal.
Renewing the certification implies, in general terms, the maintenance and continuous improvement of all the processes established in the biobank through the analysis of the context, the determination of objectives, and the definition of actions to face risks and opportunities. Specifically, they reviewed reception, registration, processement, encoding, storage, preservation, transfer and associated data of human samples. The collections included were the biobanks’ prospective: Cardiology, Rare Diseases, Nephrology, Tumor Bank, Neurological Tissue Bank, Clostridium, and COVID19.
About the biobank
The HUB-ICO-IDIBELL Biobank is authorized by the Government of Catalonia and is registered in the National Registry of Biobanks of the Carlos III Health Institute. In addition, it is part of the National Platform of Biobanks and Biomodels and the Network of Tumor Banks of Catalonia.
Its main objective is to make human samples available to the scientific community to promote research of quality and excellence. Likewise, the Biobank also receives queries and advises researchers on ethical-legal aspects and offers a wide range of services, including Laser Microdissection.
In the last year, the Biobank has made 54 transfers of samples to various research projects and it has stored a total of 2,927 new donations added to the 80,000 previously samples. The samples includes tissue samples, various tumors, liquid samples of non-tumor pathology such as minor or cardiac diseases, among others.
The Bellvitge Biomedical Research Institute (IDIBELL) is a biomedical research center created in 2004. It is participated by the Bellvitge University Hospital and the Viladecans Hospital of the Catalan Institute of Health, the Catalan Institute of Oncology, the University of Barcelona and the City Council of L’Hospitalet de Llobregat.
IDIBELL is a member of the Campus of International Excellence of the University of Barcelona HUBc and is part of the CERCA institution of the Generalitat de Catalunya. In 2009 it became one of the first five Spanish research centers accredited as a health research institute by the Carlos III Health Institute. In addition, it is part of the “HR Excellence in Research” program of the European Union and is a member of EATRIS and REGIC. Since 2018, IDIBELL has been an Accredited Center of the AECC Scientific Foundation (FCAECC).