Academia
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National Biobank DwarnaBio represented at European Biobank Week 2026
was represented at European Biobank Week 2026 in Prague during Session 3D, entitled ‘Returning biobank data to participants: Closing the loop.’ The session was jointly organised by the European Partnership for Personalised Medicine and the European biobank network BBMRI-ERIC.
The session brought together international stakeholders to discuss the evolving practice of returning data generated through clinical, genetic, and genomic studies to research participants. This is an increasingly important area for population biobanks, as genomic research moves closer to clinical translation and as participants, researchers, clinicians, and policymakers consider how research-derived information should be responsibly communicated.
Prof. Nikolai P. Pace of the Faculty of Medicine and Surgery presented ‘DwarnaBio: The Maltese Population Biobank and the Genomes of Malta’. This talk introduced DwarnaBio as the University of Malta’s population biobank initiative dedicated to supporting biomedical, genomic, and population health research in Malta. DwarnaBio aims to build a national research infrastructure that combines participant data, biological samples, and genomic information to better understand health and disease.
The talk highlighted the scientific, ethical, and practical considerations involved in returning biobank-derived information to participants. Participation in this session provided an opportunity to position the Maltese experience within a broader European discussion on participant engagement, responsible data governance, and the closing of the loop between research participants and the scientific outputs generated from their contribution.
