BIOPOOL · SERVICES ASSOCIATED TO DIGITALISED CONTENTS OF TISSUES IN BIOBANKS ACROSS EUROPE

Biobanks are facilities that provide archived human biological samples for their use in health research. They are pools of biologic material and associated health information such as pathologies and treatments, and the materials stored and their associated information are very relevant for research purposes, among others. Biobanks are increasingly digitalising their biologic material (digital images and associated textual information), but ICT power is still underused. Currently, the digital images are usually spread all over different systems stored in different formats, databases and facilities belonging to different institutions. These image collections own a very valuable knowledge in several fields, but the exploitation of this potential requires mechanisms to gather, access, visualize, process, understand and exploit large image collections. BIOPOOL objective is to build a system able to link pools of digital data managed by biobanks (comprised by histological digital images of the biologic material and the data associated to these images) and to develop added value services for the exploitation of this information (data sharing, image visualization, text and image based search queries and advanced functions such as region-of-interest extraction or automated pathology information extraction in certain cancer types). BIOPOOL aims to establish an intelligent biobank network, demonstrating the potential of this data pool for medical research, diagnosis and educational activities. BIOPOOL consortium is composed of an interdisciplinary group of experienced partners with complementary roles, including 3 innovative SMEs, being the main beneficiaries of the project results commercialization. BIOPOOL has a clear route for exploitation and will not only allow SMEs and biobanks to increase their offer of products and services but also will improve their current business, and will enhance the pathology research efficiency by reducing the diagnosis time and related cost.