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International Society for Biological and Environmental Repositories (ISBER) Community COVID-19 Response

Dear Members of the Biobanking Community,

As COVID-19 traverses a set of parallel but staggered paths across the world, the biobanking community is faced with continually evolving challenges, many of which were unanticipated prior to this crisis.  While these shared challenges have forced an isolation on us, they have also brought us together in new ways.  This situation also presents an opportunity to assist each other through the exchange of our experiences, knowledge, and lessons learned at different points along the COVID-19 “curve” in a particular region. 

 The ISBER Standards Committee invites you to share some of these experiences with others in the biobanking community so that we may help each other now while preparing a next generation of tools to support biobanks through future challenges of a similar nature.  Your aggregated responses will also serve as input for an upcoming ISBER webinar to look at our collective experiences during this crisis.  Please watch the ISBER Forum/Website for an announcement.  

How can you participate?   We encourage you to share your experiences by completing a brief survey by Wednesday, April 22, 2020 at 11:59pm Pacific Time.  We recognize that you have many time constraints--we would be grateful for any information you can provide. 
 
For those who wish, examples of responses are provided here.
 

Thank you,
ISBER Standards Committee
1.What is your location?
2.What is your Biobank Type (check all that apply)?
3.Has your Biobank been asked to handle COVID-19 - related materials?
4.At what period along the COVID-19 "curve" in your locale would you place this scenario(s)?  Feel free to address multiple periods--check all that apply.
5.What have been your biggest challenges as a biobank with respect to the pandemic?  Please provide any observations you feel would be useful.(Required.)
6.For each tool that your biobank currently has in place, please indicate the usefulness level of the tool thus far, and provide comments on the ways in which tools were particularly useful (or not).(Required.)
Not
Sure
Minimally
Useful
Fairly
Useful
Very
Useful
Extremely 
Useful
None (if none, please select "not sure")
My Biobank Quality Management Plan
My Biobank Business Plan
My Biobank Business Continuity Plan
Parent Organization or Network Business Continuity Plan
My Biobank Emergency Preparedness Plan
Parent Organization or Network Emergency Preparedness Plan
ISBER Best Practices with Addendum on Cryobiology
ISBER Self-Assessment Tool (SAT)
Internal Audit Tool (e.g ISBER IAT)
ISBER/ASCP BOC Qualification in Biorepository Science Exam (QBRS)
IBBL Biorepository Proficiency Testing (PT) Program
ISBER Biospecimen Science Working Group:  Standard PREanalytical Coding (SPREC)
ISO 20387 General requirements for biobanks
Other ISO Standards (e.g. ISO 17025, ISO 15189)
Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) Guidelines / Biological Resource Centers, 2007
Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) Guidelines / Genetic Resources and DBs, 2009
College of American Pathologists (CAP) Accreditation
NCI Best Practices
International Association for Research on Cancer (IARC)
Canadian Tissue Repository Network (CTRNet)
Other (please identify in comments)
7.Are you considering the implementation of (or are you already implementing)  any of the following tools in response to this emergency (check all that apply)?(Required.)
8.What gaps / lessons learned have you identified thus far?
9.What additional resources/tools would be helpful to you in the future?
10.Please provide other comments you feel would be useful.
11.May we share your complete (non-aggregated) response with other biobanks who could benefit from your experiences?
12.May we contact you again after the peak of this crisis has passed to update observations and lessons learned?
13.If yes, please provide your contact information: