[Quality assurance in tissue biobanking-an overview]

Tissue biobanks are important resource and technology platforms for biomedical research, which deals with molecular pathogenesis and the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of diseases.Due to this central role in the standardised collection, storage and distribution of human tissue and its derivatives, a practised quality management is one of the most important measures to achieve and maintain a comprehensive quality assurance of all biobanking processes. At the same time, this promotes acceptance and credibility. External quality assurance of biobanks can be achieved through accreditation. Within the German biobanking community, increasing harmonisation of biobanking processes has also been achieved through the provision of various quality assurance measures by the German Biobank Node (GBN).In the following, challenges and opportunities in the implementation of a comprehensive quality assurance in biobanking will be discussed and solutions for tissue biobanking will be presented using the example of the tissue bank of the National Centre for Tumour Diseases (NCT).