Latest revision as of 13:20, 7 February 2024

Biodiversity Biobank Collections: Infrastructure

Chairs: Gilberto Ocampo and Ana Lourdes Medrano

Provides participants the opportunity to share information on their genetic collections, including facilities and infrastructure, interoperability, address issues related to long-term sustainability, address challenges around data and sample quality, present use cases.

Biodiversity Biobank Collections: Sample Management

Chairs: Gilberto Ocampo and Ana Lourdes Medrano

​Session on new insights regarding sample preservatives and preservation, DNA extraction, among others. Abstracts describing the use of classical museum samples in genomic projects (genome skimming, bait capture, draft genomes) are particularly (but not exclusively) encouraged.

Environmental Samples and Data

Chairs: Jonas Astrin, Jackie Mackenzie-Dodds, Rachel Meyer

Explore links and synergies between biodiversity biobanks and ESBs (environmental specimen banks).

Cell Banking & Culture Collections

Chairs: Jonas Astrin, Jackie Mackenzie-Dodds, Oliver Ryder

Provides participants the opportunity to share information on cell collections and collections of cultured cells, their potential for research, and implications at biodiversity biobanks. This session includes presentations on the protocols and techniques for collection, preservation, authentication, and distribution for all cell culture collections and on Biological Resource Centers as important ex-situ biodiversity conservation facilities, which maintain high-quality samples.

Biobanking in megadiverse countries and the Southern Hemisphere

Chairs: Kim Labuschagne and Oluwatoyin Ogundipe

Despite several notable exceptions, biobanking activities are still comparatively scarce in the Southern Hemisphere. This stands in contrast to the actual need for biobanking in those regions of the world with particularly rich biodiversity, and to the general notion that all regions of the world should preserve autochthonous biodiversity ex-situ, including samples fit for molecular analysis. This is most relevant in areas currently undergoing strong anthropogenic change. This session will revolve around topics as: Which initiatives already exist and can be strengthened to help establishing biodiversity biobanks in megadiverse countries and the Southern Hemisphere? How is biobanking linked to public health programs and could this influence the effectiveness of building biodiversity biobanks? To what extent are indigenous perspectives being considered in biobanking to date?

Policies for Molecular Collections, GGBN Data Standard, and Workflows for Publishing Data Workshop

Chair: Astrid de Mestier

Overview of the molecular collections handbook and workflows for publishing data. Participants can ask specific questions regarding publishing data to the GGBN.

The Nagoya Protocol in Practice: Does it Affect My Field Work and Associated Research?

Chair: Gilberto Ocampo

Biological collections and biobanks must be aware of Access and Benefit Sharing(ABS) to legally manage the biological material. Failure to comply can result in legal consequences. This session will provide, in an interactive way, key information about ABS; practical tools for researchers, collections and biobanks to deal with ABS measures and develop an ABS strategy; an update on the internationaldiscussions about Digital Sequence Information (DSI); and plenty of time for questions and discussion.

General Assembly Meeting

Chairs: Ole Seberg, Jonas Astrin, Katie Barker

Participants will be updated on the status of GGBN's activities around the current workplan. Results of the 2023 Community Survey and Stakeholder Analysis will be presented.

GGBN and the Future of Biodiversity Biobanking

Chairs: Ole Seberg, Jonas Astrin, Katie Barker

​Participants will discuss how GGBN is meeting its mission, including identifying areas to improve or scale back certain services to the community. Results of this discussion will inform updates to GGBN's workplan.

More Conference Information

GGBN Conference 2023