Consent for Biobanking: The Legal Frameworks of Countries in the BioSHaRE-EU Project

Currently, there is no single, Europe-wide regulation of biomedical research using human samples and data. Instead, the law that applies spans a number of areas of law, such as data protection, clinical trials, and tissue regulation. In the absence of harmonized regulation, there is considerable scope for national legal variation. This article analyzes the legislative frameworks that apply to biobanking activities to identify differences in legal requirements between the BioSHaRE-EU project countries: Finland, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, and the United Kingdom. This article highlights the primary role of consent and accompanying governance mechanisms, such as research ethics committee oversight, which enable consent exemptions in the context of research. Our analysis identifies a complicated legal landscape, whereby broadly similar provisions are contained in varied sources of law in each jurisdiction. The challenge for researchers is locating the applicable legal provisions within each national legal framework

A comparative analysis of the requirements for the use of data in biobanks based in Finland, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway and the United Kingdom

To understand the causes of disease and improve diagnosis and treatment regimes, biomedical researchers need access to large numbers of well-characterized data and samples. Over the past decade, biobanks have been established across Europe to collect and manage access to data and samples. The challenge that we face is how to develop the tools and collaborations to enable researchers to access samples and data from a network of biobanks, rather than applying to individual biobanks. One of the perceived stumbling blocks to achieving this is represented by the different legal requirements in each country. The aim of the BioSHaRE-European Union (EU) project is to address these challenges by developing tools and methods for researchers to access and use pooled data from different cohort and biobank studies. The purpose of this article is to identify and compare the key legal requirements regarding research use of data across biobanks based in Finland Germany, the Netherlands, Norway and the UK. Our investigation starts with the analysis of the key differences for the use of data between these countries. As a result, we identified three key areas where legal requirements differ across the five BioSHaRE-EU jurisdictions, namely, in the definition of personal data, the requirements regarding pseudonymization and processing for medical research purposes. This article provides an overview of these differences and describes them in the light of the proposed EU regulation on data protection. © The Author(s) 2014

Nasjonale faglige retningslinjer for forebygging og behandling av underernæring

Retningslinjen omfatter anbefalinger om identifisering og behandling av underernærte samt pasienter i ernæringsmessig risiko i sykehus, sykehjem og hjemmebaserte tjenester

Marine mammal hotspots across the circumpolar Arctic

Aim: Identify hotspots and areas of high species richness for Arctic marine mammals. Location: Circumpolar Arctic. Methods: A total of 2115 biologging devices were deployed on marine mammals from 13 species in the Arctic from 2005 to 2019. Getis-Ord Gi* hotspots were calculated based on the number of individuals in grid cells for each species and for phyloge-netic groups (nine pinnipeds, three cetaceans, all species) and areas with high spe-cies richness were identified for summer (Jun-Nov), winter (Dec-May) and the entire year. Seasonal habitat differences among species’ hotspots were investigated using Principal Component Analysis. Results: Hotspots and areas with high species richness occurred within the Arctic continental-shelf seas and within the marginal ice zone, particularly in the “Arctic gateways” of the north Atlantic and Pacific oceans. Summer hotspots were generally found further north than winter hotspots, but there were exceptions to this pattern, including bowhead whales in the Greenland-Barents Seas and species with coastal distributions in Svalbard, Norway and East Greenland. Areas with high species rich-ness generally overlapped high-density hotspots. Large regional and seasonal dif-ferences in habitat features of hotspots were found among species but also within species from different regions. Gap analysis (discrepancy between hotspots and IUCN ranges) identified species and regions where more research is required. Main conclusions: This study identified important areas (and habitat types) for Arctic marine mammals using available biotelemetry data. The results herein serve as a benchmark to measure future distributional shifts. Expanded monitoring and teleme-try studies are needed on Arctic species to understand the impacts of climate change and concomitant ecosystem changes (synergistic effects of multiple stressors). While efforts should be made to fill knowledge gaps, including regional gaps and more com-plete sex and age coverage, hotspots identified herein can inform management ef-forts to mitigate the impacts of human activities and ecological changes, including creation of protected areas

NMR spectroscopic investigations into the mechanism of absorption and desorption of CO2 by (tris-pyridyl)amine Zn complexes

The Zn complex [(NN3)Zn(OH)]2(NO3)2 (1(NO3)2, NN3 = tris(2-pyridylmethyl)amine) reacts with atmospheric CO2 to form a zinc carbonate species {[(NN3)Zn]3CO3}(NO3)4 (2(NO3)4), isolable as a crystalline product from organic solvents. The aqueous chemistry of the CO2 absorption and desorption processes for 1(NO3)2 and the presumed end-point of the reaction, 2(NO3)4, was unknown and hence investigated by NMR spectroscopy. Carboxylation of aqueous solutions of both 1(NO3)2 and 2(NO3)4 form products that can best be described as mixtures of monomeric [(NN3)ZnCO3H]+ and dimeric {[(NN3) Zn]2CO3}2+, which are in a dynamic equilibrium on the NMR time-scale. No evidence for the involvement of 2(NO3)4 in the carboxylation-decarboxylation processes is observed. Rather, the data suggest that 2 (NO3)4 provides [(NN3)Zn(OH2)]2+ that does not participate in the CO2 chemistry upon warming. A mechanism that is supported by NMR experiments and that accounts for the formation of [(NN3) ZnCO3H]+ and {[(NN3)Zn]2CO3}2+ from both ends of the reaction manifold is proposed.acceptedVersio

NMR spectroscopic investigations into the mechanism of absorption and desorption of CO2 by (tris-pyridyl)amine Zn complexes

The Zn complex [(NN3)Zn(OH)]2(NO3)2 (1(NO3)2, NN3 = tris(2-pyridylmethyl)amine) reacts with atmospheric CO2 to form a zinc carbonate species {[(NN3)Zn]3CO3}(NO3)4 (2(NO3)4), isolable as a crystalline product from organic solvents. The aqueous chemistry of the CO2 absorption and desorption processes for 1(NO3)2 and the presumed end-point of the reaction, 2(NO3)4, was unknown and hence investigated by NMR spectroscopy. Carboxylation of aqueous solutions of both 1(NO3)2 and 2(NO3)4 form products that can best be described as mixtures of monomeric [(NN3)ZnCO3H]+ and dimeric {[(NN3) Zn]2CO3}2+, which are in a dynamic equilibrium on the NMR time-scale. No evidence for the involvement of 2(NO3)4 in the carboxylation-decarboxylation processes is observed. Rather, the data suggest that 2 (NO3)4 provides [(NN3)Zn(OH2)]2+ that does not participate in the CO2 chemistry upon warming. A mechanism that is supported by NMR experiments and that accounts for the formation of [(NN3) ZnCO3H]+ and {[(NN3)Zn]2CO3}2+ from both ends of the reaction manifold is proposed

Marine mammal hotspots across the circumpolar Arctic

Aim: Identify hotspots and areas of high species richness for Arctic marine mammals. Location: Circumpolar Arctic. Methods: A total of 2115 biologging devices were deployed on marine mammals from 13 species in the Arctic from 2005 to 2019. Getis-Ord Gi* hotspots were calculated based on the number of individuals in grid cells for each species and for phyloge-netic groups (nine pinnipeds, three cetaceans, all species) and areas with high spe-cies richness were identified for summer (Jun-Nov), winter (Dec-May) and the entire year. Seasonal habitat differences among species’ hotspots were investigated using Principal Component Analysis. Results: Hotspots and areas with high species richness occurred within the Arctic continental-shelf seas and within the marginal ice zone, particularly in the “Arctic gateways” of the north Atlantic and Pacific oceans. Summer hotspots were generally found further north than winter hotspots, but there were exceptions to this pattern, including bowhead whales in the Greenland-Barents Seas and species with coastal distributions in Svalbard, Norway and East Greenland. Areas with high species rich-ness generally overlapped high-density hotspots. Large regional and seasonal dif-ferences in habitat features of hotspots were found among species but also within species from different regions. Gap analysis (discrepancy between hotspots and IUCN ranges) identified species and regions where more research is required. Main conclusions: This study identified important areas (and habitat types) for Arctic marine mammals using available biotelemetry data. The results herein serve as a benchmark to measure future distributional shifts. Expanded monitoring and teleme-try studies are needed on Arctic species to understand the impacts of climate change and concomitant ecosystem changes (synergistic effects of multiple stressors). While efforts should be made to fill knowledge gaps, including regional gaps and more com-plete sex and age coverage, hotspots identified herein can inform management ef-forts to mitigate the impacts of human activities and ecological changes, including creation of protected areas