Maria Piazza

• Biodiversity Journal, 10 (4): 427-430 - MONOGRAPH

  Annalisa Guercio, Santina Di Bella, Giusi Macaluso, Patrizia Di Marco, Maria Piazza, Laura Russotto, Stefano Vullo, Francesco Mira & Giuseppa Purpari
  The Biobank of the “Istituto Zooprofilattico Sperimentale” of Sicily (Italy): an important resource in medical research for safe and quality storage of biological specimens
  https://doi.org/10.31396/Biodiv.Jour.2019.10.4.427.430

  ABSTRACT
  The “Biobanca del Mediterraneo” (BBM) has been recently developed at the Istituto Zooprofilattico Sperimentale (IZS) of Sicily in Palermo, with the aim to collect and store under standard conditions and in a centralized system several types of certified animal and zoonotic biological resources (bacterial and viral strains, parasites, nucleic acids, positive/negative sera, cell cultures, tissues) in accordance to Quality System procedures as regulated by UNI CEI EN ISO/IEC 17025:2018. Presently, biological material from the OIE Reference Laboratories and National Reference Centres of the IZS of Sicily are being stored. Before storage, selection and cataloging of the most representative biological material collected from the Institutes’ laboratories is performed. The “Biobanca del Mediterraneo”, together with four other IZSs (IZS Emilia Romagna e Lombardia, IZS Piemonte, Liguria e Valle d’Aosta, IZS Venezie e IZS Abruzzo e Molise), is part of the Network of “Biobanche Veterinarie”, recognised as "OIE Collaborative Center for Veterinary Biological Biobank" by the “Office International des Epizooties” (OIE). The objectives of the Biobank are the promotion and implementation of collaborations with the scientific community in order to harmonize and standardize bio-banking practices and the development of scientific and technological research to provide services to both the scientific and business world. In fact, collected samples can be used for diagnosis, research, vaccine and drug production, epidemiological studies and other applications.

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