Architecture Enabling Service-oriented Digital Biobanks

Abstract

In Finland, the Biobank Act entered into effect in 2013. The primary motivation for the act is to enable the utilization of collected biological sample material for medical research. However, in order to effectively utilize this data, there exists a need to develop new technological solutions to support the collection and management of potentially large sets of sensitive data through multiple stages of processing. The cumulative data stored within biobanks will enable multi-disciplinary research and new innovations. We propose an architecture that addresses several challenges involved in defining and deploying a biobank infrastructure including consent management, data management and data transfer. Our architecture expedites the development of this important area within the research and industrial communities, and enables the deployment of service-oriented biobanks.