Credit: IBBL
The Integrated BioBank of Luxembourg (IBBL) has announced the positive results of its new Proficiency Testing programme in China.
The values have indicated an encouraging consistency between the measurements obtained by the Chinese and international participants, pointing towards an increasing standardisation of biobanking and laboratory practices worldwide.
In the wake of the success of IBBL’s international Proficiency Testing (PT) programme, a new PT programme entirely dedicated to Chinese biobanks was launched in July 2018, in an agreement between IBBL, the International Society for Biological and Environmental Repositories (ISBER) and the Biobank Branch, China Medicinal Biotech Association (BBCMBA). The one-year pilot programme offered two testing schemes: "DNA quantification and purity" and "RNA quantification and purity". About 30 participants enrolled for each scheme.
The assigned values obtained by the Chinese institutions for both schemes were found to be almost identical to those obtained by the rest of the international participants. Professor Gao, President of BBCMBA, commented: “These results demonstrate that the performance of the biospecimen testing methods of Chinese biobanks and testing laboratories is in line with that of our international colleagues and that the measurements obtained by Chinese institutions can therefore be considered trustworthy and of high quality. This will further contribute to enhancing data exchanges between China and international laboratories, thus strengthening cooperation and supporting the development of global health”.
As the sole ISBER-endorsed PT programme in the world that focuses on biospecimens, IBBL’s processing and testing schemes have become increasingly popular over the years. In 2018, 115 participants from 31 countries registered for a total of 492 subscribed processing and testing schemes.
