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Biobanks are an important compound of personalized medicine and strongly support the scientific progress in stratification of population and biomarker discovery and validation due to progress in personalized medicine. Biobanks are an essential tool for new drug discoveries and drug development. Biobanks play an important role in the whole process of patient prevention and prediction, follow-up, and therapy monitoring and optimalization. Biobanks have the specificity in that they cover multidisciplinary approach to the human health combining biological and medical approaches, as well as informative bioinformatics technologies, computationing, and modeling. The importance of biobanks has during the last decade increased in variety and capacity from small collections of samples to large-scale national or international repositories. Collected samples are population-based, disease-specific or rare diseases originating from a diverse profile of individuals. There are various purposes of biobanks, such as diagnostics, pharmacology, or research. Biobanks involve, store, and operate with specific personal information, and as a consequence, such a diversity of biobanking is associated with a broad spectrum of ethical and legal issues. Biobanks are an international phenomenon because any single country, state, or society at the moment is not able to cover all issues involving the whole biobank problematic. Biobanks have an enormous innovative potential in the whole process of biomedical research in the twenty-first century.

Biobanking as a quickly growing branch of personalised medicine has undergone enormous progress during last two decades. Nowadays it is a well developed and structured multidisciplinary field that reflects developments and advances of biomedical research based on principles of predictive, preventive and personalised medicine (PPPM/3PM). All these trends in PPPM progress have to be translated into practice and education of new generation of scientists and healthcare givers. The importance of biobanks for multitasking research, personalised treatment, and health care systems was emphasised by many scientists and health care experts. As biobanking carries multidisciplinary character currently including more professionals than ten—twenty years ago, new generation of professional biobankers is urgently needed. To create new generation of biobankers who are fully competent to answer more and more scientific and practical questions, new study programmes, novel university curricula, and topic-dedicated courses are essential. The aim of the review is to present basic forms, trends of biobanking education offered by various biobanking related bodies and to highlight future needs. The first step is to cover all activities and duties of biobanks: acquiring, collecting, storageing and sharing biological samples and associated data, using adequate assessment for both - materials and data, taking into consideration ethical, legal, and societal issues (ELSI), responding to all stakeholder needs including pharmaceutical and other related industries, patient organisations and many other interested groups, emerging technologies and innovations as well as current and future requirements of health care systems. To compile educational programmes is a comprehensive task for all actors involved in the field of biobanking who contribute to the harmonised process of creating high educational level for future generation of biobankers. The exchange of experience involving extensive international collaboration is the way how to facilitate the process of creating optimal biobanking education.

Biobanking is entering the new era—era of big data. New technologies, techniques, and knowledge opened the potential of the whole domain of biobanking. Biobanks collect, analyse, store, and share the samples and associated data. Both samples and especially associated data are growing enormously, and new innovative approaches are required to handle samples and to utilize the potential of biobanking data. The data reached the quantity and quality of big data, and the scientists are facing the questions how to use them more efficiently, both retrospectively and prospectively with the aim to discover new preventive methods, optimize treatment, and follow up and to optimize healthcare processes. Biobanking in the era of big data contribute to the development of predictive, preventive, and personalised medicine, for every patient providing the right treatment at the right time. Biobanking in the era of big data contributes to the paradigm shift towards personalising of healthcare.

Introduction: PSA is a serine protease composed of 240 amino acids in a single polypeptide chain and is a routine parameter in prostate cancer diagnostics. The aim of our study was to test the long-term stability of tPSA and fPSA after 10 years’ storage at −80°C. Materials and methods: We analyzed two aliquots from 55 serum samples. The first was assayed in routine testing at the time of establishing the diagnosis. The second was thawed for further testing after approximately 10 years’ storage at −80°C. The mean of storage time was 10.41 years (min–max: 9.35–11.40 years). We compared the results of tPSA and fPSA. We calculated the fPSA/tPSA ratio and compared the results of clinical evaluation. Serum tPSA and fPSA levels were assayed using chemiluminescent kits Access Hybritech PSA and free PSA. All measurements were performed using the instrument UniCel® DxI 800. Results: tPSA decreased 3.59% on average with a correlation r=0.9213, and fPSA increased at an average of 2.41% with a correlation r=0.9338. The fPSA/tPSA ratio increased 0.80% on average with a correlation r=0.9174. On clinical evaluation, five samples had fallen to a less malignant category and three samples had risen to a higher malignant category compared with the original results. Conclusion: The stability of tPSA and fPSA levels in serum is sufficient after 10 years’ storage at −80°C. Calculation of the fPSA/tPSA ratio is not recommended due to the change in the category of malignancy of 15% of the samples.

The 39th annual conference: Immunoanalytical Days took place between 11th and 13th of March 2018 in Pilsen, Czech Republic. The title was: Personalised medicine, biobanks and biomarkers for the optimal approach to the patient. The conference was co-organized by the Czech Society of Nuclear Medicine, the Czech Society of Clinical Biochemistry, the University Hospital Pilsen and Faculty of Medicine in Pilsen and Charles University. The event attracted 150 participants from the Czech Republic and ten speakers from abroad. The program offered several main scopes of topics including personalized medicine, biobanks and biomarkers; their discovery, validation, evaluation and use of tumor biomarkers currently used in the whole process of patient’s care from prevention, prediction, early diagnosis, through treatment, treatment monitoring and follow-up monitoring.

Biobanks have during last two decades gained an important role in the whole process of biomedical research and health care not only in Europe but also worldwide. Biobanks are one of the pillars in personalised medicine tackling all its aspects such as prevention, diagnosis, treatment and monitoring closely the specific characteristics of an individual patient. The current and future power of biobanks is the amount of samples of high-quality and related information available for current and future research of diseases, for optimising patients´ prevention, diagnosis, treatment and monitoring. The material stored in biobanks is a treasure for future technologies that will be able to utilise the currently uncovered information and knowledge. A great and growing number of samples and related information also opens new ways in how to tackle the big data problems and population studies. Biobanks play a substantial role in drug discovery, development and validation. Biobanks are not only an issue of biomedical research, but are becoming a public issue involving patients, to actively participate in biobanking with respect to ethical, legal and social issues. And, finally, biobanking as a multidisciplinary and modern field of science requires appropriate education at all levels of society. To be a world leader in the field of biobanking requires wide international and interdisciplinary collaboration. The topic-dedicated programmes released by the European Commission sustainably support biobank development in Europe and the main tool is the biggest European Union (EU) research and innovation programme ever—Horizon 2020. This article reviews the main Horizon 2020 biobanking projects, financing schemes and the future perspectives.

The 44th congress followed the previous one of International Society of Oncology and Biomarkers (ISOBM) that took place in Chicago (USA) in 2016. The title of the 44th Annual congress was: 'Biomarkers in oncology: new horizons and challenges in the diagnosis and treatment of cancer' [ ]. The congress was co-organized by ISOBM, European Group on Tumor Markers (EGTM) and Brazilian Society of Clinical Pathology SBPC/ML. The event attracted more than 180 participants from all over the world. The program offered many topics regarding discovery, validation, evaluation and use of tumor biomarkers. The presentations were split into the key note lectures, oral presentations, poster presentations and satellite symposiums sponsored by companies. The congress offered participants the opportunity to link clinical and research oncologists to discuss new tools for diagnosis and monitoring of cancer diseases. Prominent people in the field of cancer research and clinical oncology were presented and offered the unique opportunity to exchange experiences and knowledge in an international forum [ ]. Compared with previous ISOBM congresses, it was held in Latin America for the first time, and due to that more participants from Latin America were present.

The European Association for Predictive, Preventive and Personalised Medicine (EPMA) considers acute problems in medical sciences as well as the quality and management of medical services challenging health care systems in Europe and worldwide. This actuality has motivated the representatives of EPMA to comment on the efforts in promoting an integrative approach based on multidisciplinary expertise to advance health care-related research and management. The current paper provides a global overview of the problems related to medical services: pandemic scenario in the progression of common non-communicable diseases, delayed interventional approaches of reactive medicine, poor economy of health care systems, lack of specialised educational programmes, problematic ethical aspects of several treatments as well as inadequate communication among professional groups and policymakers. In the form of individual paragraphs, the article presents a consolidated position of PPPM professionals towards the new European programme ‘Horizon 2020’ providing the long-lasting instruments for scientific and technological progress in medical services and health care-related programmes. In the author's opinion, Horizon 2020 provides unlimited room for research and implementation in Predictive, Preventive and Personalised Medicine. However, the overall success of the programme strongly depends on the effective communication and consolidation of professionals relevant for PPPM as well as the communication quality with policymakers. Smart political decision is the prerequisite of the effective PPPM implementation in the health care sector. This position is focused on the patients' needs, innovative medical sciences, optimal health and disease management, expert recommendations for the relevant medical fields and optimal solutions which have a potential to advance health care services if the long-term strategies were to be effectively implemented as proposed here.

Informed consent is an important document for every existing biobank or repository to obtain, store and use human biospecimens and associated data and information for current and future research. Biobanks have undergone great progress worldwide during the last three decades and have become an integral part of personalized medicine and health care systems and due to new scientific and social questions to be solved. Ethical, legal and social issues (ELSI) guarantee safe sample and data management, and informed consent is one of the key ELSI documents. The form and the consent given in biobank informed consent forms differs between biobank-related institutions, national biobanks, between EU states, and to find the optimal informed consent requires one to fulfil national and international laws and regulations. The Biobank in Pilsen, Czech Republic was officially opened on April the 20th 2017 as a hospital-integrated biobank, and the informed consent was one of the essential documents that had to be ready prior the opening. The process of formulating informed consent corresponding with institutional, national, and international rules and laws to share the experience, to present the challenges, and to demonstrate the national dissimilarity are tasks of the article.