Biotech News - International Tissue-Repository Association President Selected

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http://www.arizonabiotech.com/


International tissue-repository association president selected to lead emergent 
Integrated Biobank of Luxembourg


LUXEMBOURG – March 25, 2009 - Officials of the Integrated Biobank of Luxembourg 
(IBBL) today announced the selection of Dr. Robert Hewitt, president of an 
international association governing biological samples, as Chief Executive 
Officer.

As head of the IBBL, Hewitt will be in charge of a state-of-the-art tissue 
storage and distribution initiative that will help a worldwide network of 
cancer scientists and other disease researchers find answers to humanity's most 
pressing health problems.

Dr. Jean-Claude Schmit, chairman of the seven-member governing board of the 
IBBL, said Hewitt was selected as CEO because of his impeccable credentials, 
his worldwide connections and his experience in setting up biobanks in other 
nations.

"Dr. Hewitt is internationally recognized as a leading scientist in 
biobanking," Schmit said, following the IBBL's recent board meeting at the 
Phoenix, Arizona, USA headquarters of the Translational Genomics Research 
Institute (TGen). TGen is partnering with Luxembourg to help develop the IBBL, 
and TGen is part of the first demonstration project, Luxembourg Project Lung 
Cancer, in collaboration with the Partnership for Personalized Medicine.

Dr. Jeffrey Trent, TGen's President and Scientific Director, said Hewitt was 
the obvious choice for the new position. "Dr. Hewitt brings energy and 
creativity to the IBBL. His reputation within the biobanking community is a 
strength that will help ensure the IBBL's success through his leadership and 
his ability to foster collaborations on an international scale."

The IBBL is key to a multi-part strategy to make Luxembourg the center of 
excellence in health sciences and technologies of Europe.

"This is a project that puts us on the global map," said Schmit, who also is 
General Manager of Luxembourg's Public Research Centre for Health (Centre de 
Recherche Public Sante). "The IBBL will allow us to have state-of-the-art 
samples for research. It is opening our country to international research. For 
TGen, it's an opportunity to enter the European research market."

Patrizia Luchetta, the IBBL Project Manager and IBBL Board Vice-Chairman, also 
praised Hewitt's dedication and experience.

"Dr. Hewitt stands out for his appreciation of the role of biobanks in 
biomedical research, and his deep understanding of what it takes to set up a 
state-of-the-art biobanking facility," said Luchetta, who also serves as Deputy 
Director of Luxembourg's Board of Economic Development in the Ministry of the 
Economy and Foreign Trade.

Dr. Hewitt is president of the International Society for Biological and 
Environmental Repositories. The ISBER aims to promote best practices in the 
management of biobanks, which store such items as therapeutic tissues, 
microbial culture collections, biodiversity samples and even museum collections.

"The IBBL is really vital to the development of personalized medicine," said 
Hewitt, referring to the process of quickly bringing new laboratory discoveries 
to the diagnosis and treatment of patients.

As part of an international partnership to spur discovery and innovation, 
Luxembourg last year enlisted the Phoenix-based Partnership for Personalized 
Medicine, which includes: TGen; Arizona State University's Biodesign Institute; 
and Seattle, Washington's Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center. A strategic 
partnership between Seattle's Institute of Systems Biology and the University 
of Luxembourg constitutes the third pillar of Luxembourg's overall initiative 
in life sciences.

Hewitt has developed biobanks in England, Saudi Arabia and Singapore, where he 
is director of the Tissue Repository & Hospital-based Cancer Registry at the 
National University Hospital and National University of Singapore. The Tissue 
Repository provides researchers with samples of blood and tumor tissues 
collected only with patient consent.

"What I set up in Singapore is like a small scale model of what will be set up 
for Luxembourg," said Hewitt, who was educated in England and served a 
fellowship in the Laboratory of Pathology at the U.S. National Institutes of 
Health. "The wonderful thing with the Luxembourg plan is that everything is 
funded."

Hewitt starts his new position on July 1. He eventually will supervise a staff 
of nearly 70 at the IBBL, which will include a biorepository, biorefinery, 
offices of administration and compliance, a technology center and an 
information-management center for maintaining and developing databases.

"One thing I've learned is the importance of winning the enthusiastic support 
of the many different groups of people who are vital to the biobanking process. 
These include patients and their communities as well as doctors, nurses, 
scientists and administrators. Only when all these groups are working together, 
can we be fully effective in building high quality biobanks to support advances 
in medical research," Hewitt said.

About the Integrated BioBank of Luxembourg (IBBL)
The Integrated Biobank of Luxembourg - co-founded by the nation's three Public 
Research Centers Santé, Tudor and Lippmann, and by the University of Luxembourg 
– holds the promise of becoming the premier European hub for advanced 
biobanking, biotechnology and biomedical informatics. While most European and 
U.S. biobanks focus on collection and distribution of specimens, the IBBL will 
implement uniform standards for collection, storage and distribution of a full 
range of tissue samples, including blood, serum and tumor tissues. This 
next-generation biobank will provide molecular-based characterizations of 
biospecimens linked to clinical studies. The project will leverage expertise in 
biology, pathology, informatics and information technology infrastructure, 
laboratory operations, transportation, legal matters and ethics. The IBBL will 
serve as a centralized resource for sharing and comparing research results 
through a robust, scalable and secure bioinformatics system that supports the 
collection, processing, storage, annotation and distribution of biospecimens 
and data.

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