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Updated: Aug 29, 2025

Biobank for Translational Medicine: Standard Operating Procedures for Optimal Sample Management
Published on: November 30, 2022
Blanket Consent and Trust in the Biobanking Context
Morten Ebbe Juul Nielsen1, Nana Cecilie Halmsted Kongsholm2
1University of Copenhagen, Karen Blixens Plads 8, 2300, Copenhagen S, Denmark.
Abstract:
Obtaining human genetic samples is vital for many biobank research purposes, yet, the ethics of obtainment seems to many fraught with difficulties. One key issue is consent: it is by many considered ethically vital that consent must be fully informed (at least ideally speaking) in order to be legitimate. In this paper, we argue for a more liberal approach to consent: a donor need not know all the specifics of future uses of the sample. We argue that blanket consent is ethically defensible, and that this is buttressed by considerations of (justified) trust-relations. Given robust institutional oversight, blanket consent is a permissible form of consent in the bio-banking context.
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