About

The EuroBioBank network is the first operating network of biobanks in Europe providing human DNA, cell and tissue samples as a service to the scientific community conducting research on rare diseases. It is the only network dedicated to rare disease research in Europe. It is the biobank network of RD-Connect.

Originally funded by the European Commission between 2003-2006 (FP5; project QLRI-CT-2002-02769), the EuroBioBank received further EC support between 2007-2011 within the European Network of Excellence TREAT-NMD (FP6; LSHM-CT-2006-036825). As of January 2012, the Fondazione Telethon provides the administrative support for coordinating the EuroBioBank network. The efforts and achievements of the network are published in the article ”The EuroBioBank Network: 10 years of hands-on experience of collaborative, transnational biobanking for rare diseases” (Mora et al., 2015).

In 2017, EuroBioBank Network is composed of 25 rare disease biobank members from 9 European countries (France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Malta, Slovenia, Spain, United Kingdom and Turkey) as well as Israel and Canada.

More than 150,000 biological samples are available across the network and can be requested via the RD-Connect Sample Catalogue. Approximately new 13,000 samples are collected each year and 7,000 samples are distributed in Europe and beyond. The biological samples are obtained from patients affected by rare diseases. Currently, the network holds specimens for more than 950 rare diseases.

The Coordinator of the network is Professor Alex Felice M.D., Ph.D., F.M.C.Path (C. Spec. Genetika) K.M.

Past Scientific Coordinators were: Dr Cécile Jaeger (2002-2005), Professor Hanns Lochmüller (2005-2012), Dr Marina Mora (2013-2017). Past Administrative Coordinator: Dr. Lucia Monaco (2012-2018) and was supported by Program Manager Dr. Chiuhui Mary Wang (2014-2018), Professor Manuel Posada de la Paz (2019-2021) Director of Rare Disease Research (IIER), Institute of Health Carlos III (ISCIII), Spain.