Testing phase Biobank
Since the beginning of May, a test phase with rheumatology patients at the university hospital Geneva is taking place.
This testing phase will reveal any shortcomings in the processes and procedures, that have been set up for this project. Once these have been resolved, the testing phase will be extended to the university hospital of Zürich. Here, a main challenge will be to verify that the logistics of the cooled transport of biosamples to the central laboratory in Geneva work flawlessly. After these two testing phases, the collection of biosamples will be extended to the other university hospitals and in the cantonal hospitals of Aarau and St. Gallen.
We anticipate to be ready to initiate all other Swiss rheumatology institutions (including rheumatology offices) into the Biobank project in quarter 4 of 2011.