The Ethics of Research Using Biobanks

Abstract

The last decade has seen growing ethical concern about the use of stored human tissue for research, particularly with respect to population-based genetic research.^1-4 In 1999, it was reported that Medical Biobank in Västerbotten County in Sweden and a biotech company, UmanGenomics, Umeå, which had been given all commercial rights to the biobank, had developed an ethics policy basically solving the problems with this type of research.^5,6 The key element in this policy was informed consent, and all donors were reported to have signed a consent form. International bioethical debate has also centered on the use of informed consent in tissue-based research, usually founded on the assumption that consent procedures are the most important issue from the donors’ point of view.