"Biobanks, biomolecular resources and bioinformatics for health care and medical research in Europe"

For future European biobanks and genetic epidemiology projects it is essential to produce standards operating procedures (SOP) for efficient handling of the quality-control and data merging issues from different data sets. Along with databases detailing sample collections it is also necessary to ensure early access to important new research tools, and that state-of-the-art techniques are readily available. I will during this talk present some background information and I will then speak more in detail about a database that we propose can be used to complements the databases focused on the collection of samples of human and animal origin from well-characterized populations. MolMeth (Molecular Methods database) is a database system that catalogs laboratory protocols and methods for the life sciences. It is of particular value for large-scale applications in biobanks and systems biology, but also provides value in scientific communication about molecular procedures in general. It is designed to meet a growing need for structure in protocol specifications while offering convenience for contributors and easy access for end users. Structured protocols offer several advantages over current "flat file" protocol databases, such as allowing protocol presentation be adapted for different purposes. It also provides a foundation for automated reasoning regarding protocols.