About the organisers
Founded in 2016, the Swiss Biobanking Platform (SBP) is the national infrastructure dedicated to supporting and coordinating biobanking activities across Switzerland. As the Swiss node of BBMRI-ERIC, the European research infrastructure for biobanks, SBP bridges the Swiss and international biobanking communities.
Over the past 10 years, SBP has grown into an essential partner for biobanking in Switzerland — building a network of over 100 biobanks across the country and establishing itself as the reference organisation for quality, standards and best practices in the field.
The SBP Governing Board brings together leading experts from Switzerland’s five University Hospitals, alongside national specialists representing liquid, tissue, veterinary biobanks as well as microbiology, and natural history collections. Since May 2025, the Board has been chaired by Prof. Carlo Largiadèr, representative of Inselspital Bern University Hospital and Director of the Liquid Biobank Bern.
The Swiss Biobanking Day offers an opportunity to celebrate a decade of collaboration with the Liquid Biobank Bern (LBB), a key partner since the very beginning, while reflecting what SBP has always stood for: bringing the community together, sharing knowledge, and giving Swiss biobanks a space to stay informed about the latest developments in the field.
The Liquid Biobank Bern (LBB) was established as Inselspital Bern’s investment in the future of biomedical research. Launched on 31 May 2016, with pilot operations beginning that day and full operational status reached in February 2017, the LBB was created to move biobanking beyond fragmented, study-specific sample storage toward an automated, standardized, and hospital-integrated infrastructure.
The LBB processes and stores liquid biosamples—especially blood—and links high-quality, consented samples with clinical data for approved research projects, both current and future. It manages large institutional hospital patient cohort collections comprising more than 30’000 patient donors and provides biobanking services to over 125 studies. Through its state-of-the-art infrastructure for automated processing and long-term storage of liquid biosamples in compliance with the Swiss Human Research Act, the LBB supports research into disease mechanisms, prediction, prevention, diagnosis, and therapy.
Over its first decade, the LBB has developed into a central platform for precision medicine and clinical research in Bern. Key milestones include more than ten new studies per year from 2018 onward, more than 10’000 processed primary samples in 2019, the first 100’000 processed cryotubes in 2020, rapid automated processing and sorting during the COVID-19 pandemic, and major cohort contributions such as menuCH-Kids and BEready. Operated under the professional responsibility of the Department of Clinical Chemistry and supported by the University Center for Laboratory Medicine, the LBB now serves as a quality-driven bridge between routine patient care and future biomedical discovery.