Investigation of the needs for national and local biobank services and improvement of biobank awareness
Makkonen, Enni (2019)
2019
Bioteknologian tutkinto-ohjelma
Lääketieteen ja terveysteknologian tiedekunta - Faculty of Medicine and Health Technology
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Hyväksymispäivämäärä
2019-11-20
Julkaisun pysyvä osoite on
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:tuni-201910294159
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:tuni-201910294159
Tiivistelmä
Background and aims: Biobank is a repository where human-derived samples and associated data are collected and stored for future research purposes. Biobanks have an essential role in the development of medicine from the symptom- and diagnose-based cure to proactive, preventive and personalized medicine. In Finland, Biobank Law came into effect in 2013, after which ten biobanks have been registered. Finnish Clinical Biobank Tampere received its operating license in 2015. The Finnish biobank operations are still relatively new and require development to meet the biobank users’ needs. This study aimed to increase the visibility of Finnish Clinical Biobank Tampere among the local academic researchers and to improve their biobank awareness by the means of marketing. Another aim of this study was to investigate the needs for biobank services among academic researchers and pharmaceutical companies.
Methods: This study composed of two parts: a local part for academic researchers and a national part for pharmaceutical companies. Online questionnaires were used to explore the needs for biobank services and to find out the level of academic researchers’ level of biobank awareness. Two rounds of questionnaires were used in the local part to investigate the possible changes in biobank awareness. To increase the academic researchers’ biobank awareness, different marketing methods were planned and implemented between the questionnaires: a presentation, an email, and a leaflet. The researchers on the first round were divided into three reference groups to test the effect of each marketing method. After the second questionnaire, the effect of each method was analyzed with statistical analyses to find out the most effective method(s) for further use.
Results: Presentation given face-to-face appeared to be the most effective marketing method in raising both biobank visibility and the sense of having received enough information about the biobank operations. Email and leaflet were not as effective methods. The number of study participants was too small for email marketing to succeed. Leaflet alone was not an efficient method, but together with presentation, led to best results in increasing biobank awareness. Although increased during this study, the biobank awareness among academic researchers in Tampere is still low. Academic researchers’ interests towards different biobank sample and data types are widely distributed, whereas pharmaceutical companies are primarily interested in data and nationally unified biobank services.
Conclusion: Local marketing, preferably personal meetings, and local service development should be prioritized to increase collaboration between the biobank and academic researchers. Enhanced collaboration would probably lead to researchers’ further interest towards biobanks in a national level as well. National coordination is needed to unify the Finnish biobank services. Presumably, that would increase the interest of pharmaceutical companies towards utilization of biobanks in their research.
Methods: This study composed of two parts: a local part for academic researchers and a national part for pharmaceutical companies. Online questionnaires were used to explore the needs for biobank services and to find out the level of academic researchers’ level of biobank awareness. Two rounds of questionnaires were used in the local part to investigate the possible changes in biobank awareness. To increase the academic researchers’ biobank awareness, different marketing methods were planned and implemented between the questionnaires: a presentation, an email, and a leaflet. The researchers on the first round were divided into three reference groups to test the effect of each marketing method. After the second questionnaire, the effect of each method was analyzed with statistical analyses to find out the most effective method(s) for further use.
Results: Presentation given face-to-face appeared to be the most effective marketing method in raising both biobank visibility and the sense of having received enough information about the biobank operations. Email and leaflet were not as effective methods. The number of study participants was too small for email marketing to succeed. Leaflet alone was not an efficient method, but together with presentation, led to best results in increasing biobank awareness. Although increased during this study, the biobank awareness among academic researchers in Tampere is still low. Academic researchers’ interests towards different biobank sample and data types are widely distributed, whereas pharmaceutical companies are primarily interested in data and nationally unified biobank services.
Conclusion: Local marketing, preferably personal meetings, and local service development should be prioritized to increase collaboration between the biobank and academic researchers. Enhanced collaboration would probably lead to researchers’ further interest towards biobanks in a national level as well. National coordination is needed to unify the Finnish biobank services. Presumably, that would increase the interest of pharmaceutical companies towards utilization of biobanks in their research.