Conditions for the Admissibility of Scienti C Research in Biomedicine Biobanking: A Challenge in Times of Big Data

Abstract

The subject of the article is the analysis of the rights of donors donating their biological samples to biobanks in the 21st century. Issues regarding donor rights have been analyzed since the 1980s, however, changing times, creating Big Data databases as well as evolving legal awareness of donors meant that today the role of donors in the biobanking process should be perceived differently. Donors become active subjects of scientific research which is connected with the need to answer questions about the obligations to inform them about the results of scientific research conducted on their samples or incidental findings. Likewise, the combination of data registers and the creation of Big Data basis require the re-thinking of terms such as the protection of personal data of donors or the anonymisation of their data. These issues are imposed by negligence or complete lack of legal regulation of the biobanking, which makes the legal protection of the rights of donors dependent on the will of a particular biobank. All these phenomena result in the necessity of new approaches to the rights of donors and their inclusion in the future legal regulation.