Work Package 2 (WP2)

WP2 – Integration of clinical and biobank resources, advancement in clinical study design

     The main objective of this WP is to improve and optimize the use of resources provided by large biobanks and prospective cohorts in combination with the national health care system, improve knowledge in establishment of clinical studies for development of precision medicine approaches, which includes:

  1. Improving practical and efficient model for the management of biobank, providing high- quality biospecimen and data repositories for biomedical research.
  2. Obtaining more sophisticated knowledge in biobank-associated clinical data management and implementation in clinical studies, facilitate an accurate biobank data interpretation.
  3. Improving approaches and standards for the conduction of well-designed clinical studies, considering potential risk factors associated with the application of biobank resources in clinical studies.

     WP2 is focused on the optimal use of existing biobank and national health system resources, ensuring data implementation in well-designed clinical studies at discovery and translational levels. The activities of WP2 are based on knowledge transfer from UNIVDUN, WEISMANN and ULUND to LBMC within the framework of Summer school and four short-term stuff exchange visits, by sharing the experience of using biobank as a tool for clinical research. The short-term stuff exchange visits will cover topics of practical principles for data structuring and analysis, UK biobank practice, organization of clinical studies and innovations related to clinical study designs with emphasis on studies of metabolic disease, experience in collecting and arranging tissue repositories together with acquisition of epigenetic data and finally the application of Latvian e-health data, state health registry data and LGDB resource in clinical studies. The Summer school organized by LBMC will be focused on clinical data management from the perspective of researchers and biobanks involving lectures led by representatives of UNVIDUN, ULUND, WEISMANN and BBMRI-ERIC with the target audience of researchers from Baltic region. Each activity will be followed by a report containing a description of acquired knowledge and quality assessment in a form of self-evaluation of participants in order to improve the quality of the following project activities.

The main tasks of the WP2 are the following:

  • Advancement of clinical data management procedures, data application and accessibility standards, and comprehensive biobank resource employment.
  • Improvement of knowledge and standards for the development of clinical study design, consideration of possible limitations specific to clinical studies of various levels of complexity.
  • Knowledge transfer for clinical data management to the scientific community of Latvia and Baltic region.