Creation of a Forensic Pathology Biobank in Switzerland: which issues and research opportunities?

Abstract

A biobank is a collection of biological material associated with health database. The field of biobanking has significantly developed over the past thirty years. Research based on biobank material gives access to data of a large number of people and can often significantly accelerate the understanding of disease and improve the quality of the care.In the University Center of Legal Medicine Lausanne-Geneva, samples collected during autopsies are used for forensic investigations. The legal and ethical framework to use these samples for research is often complex and confused, which is unfortunate given the potential of these biospecimens. Indeed, forensic samples are valuable for research because they originate in part from young (including pediatrics cases) and healthy people who are poorly represented in worldwide institutional biobanks. In this context at the beginning of the year 2019, the Forensic Pathology Biobank was created.Creation of a forensic pathology biobank is the best way to standardize local conservation practices and improve personal data management, thus providing a very valuable biological material for scientific projects. Its development gives rise to many questions about technical standards, ethical and legal issues but also many research opportunities.

Blood proteome of acute intracranial hemorrhage in infant victims of abusive head trauma

“…We anticipated that PM specimens routinely collected upon medico‐legal examination represent a valuable source of biological information for future research on infant victims of AHT [13] (Figure 1). We adapted the serum proteomic workflow as described elsewhere [9] to full blood specimens.…”

“…The serum samples of children younger than two with concerns regarding AHT have not been easily accessible, and the animal models that replicate the various aspects of human TBI showed considerable clinical limitations [11, 12]. The recent registration of forensic biobanks via medico‐legal structures covering the specimens of healthy pediatric populations underrepresented in standard clinical biobanks will open great opportunities for novel discoveries in pediatric TBI [13]. Here, we hypothesized that proteins sourced from brain tissue leakage would likely be elevated in the peripheral PMB and serum of children admitted to hospital with AHT, compared with atraumatic infants.…”

Biobanks: Archives or Resources? Their Secondary Use for Forensic Purposes—A Systematic Review

“…Although, the literature has extensively discussed the potential significance of the proposed forensic database mission. More recently, since biobanks dedicated to research are still limited to collections established in different local facilities, Tozzo et al highlight the urgent need to develop an international network among forensic institutes [23,34]. The proposal of Tozzo et al [23] considers the expansion of biobanks, physically located in different places but connected in a single network, thus improving research in the forensic field: from forensic toxicology to pathology and forensic genetics and to all those areas in which it is necessary to obtain results that are reproducible [23].…”

“…Wiskott et al [34] report that in 2022 in Switzerland, at the University Center of Legal Medicine (Lausanne-Geneva), many biological samples are routinely collected during autopsies. Most of these are used in forensic investigations (histopathology, toxicology, microbiology, clinical chemistry, and genetics) in the medical-legal context and destroyed after three years.…”

UPO Biobank: The Challenge of Integrating Biobanking into the Academic Environment to Support Translational Research

“…), but imposes, at the same time, the need for a critical mass of biological samples and information collected according to the scientific criteria and high-quality standards [ 5 , 6 , 7 ]. Research biobanks have been created to meet these needs and, from the first appearance of the term biobank in a scientific report in 1996 [ 8 ], their diffusion and development have soared all over the world [ 9 , 10 , 11 , 12 , 13 , 14 , 15 , 16 ]. Biobanks can be properly defined as legal entities or part of a legal entity that performs, in a standardized way, the acquisition, storage, and distribution of high-quality biological samples and associated data for research purposes [ 17 , 18 , 19 , 20 ].…”