Openining Research Biobanks: an Overview

In biomedical research and translational medicine, the ancient war between the exclusive right (private control over information) and public access to information is struggling on a new battlefield: research biobanks. The latter are becoming increasingly important (one of the ideas changing the world, according Time magazine) because they collect, store and distribuite in a secure and professional way a critical mass of human biologocal samples for research purposes. Tissues and related data are fundamental for the development of biomedical research and emerging field of translational medicine, because the represent the "raw material" for every kind of biomedical study. For this reason it is crucial to understand the boundaries of IP in this prickly context. After an overview of the complex interactions among the different stakeholders involved in the process of the production of knowledge, in this paper we will thin out some blurring of language concerning concepts often mixed up, such as "open source", "open access", and their precipitates. Then, the aim is to understand if we can use the concepts in the biomedical context, and wich are the open models proposed in literature specifically for research biobanks in order to avoid the tragedy of anticommons.