Environmental Impact Assessment of Biobanking Strategies: Creating a Sustainable Biobanking Roadmap for sample storage

英国承诺到2050年实现净零排放。为了实现这一目标，英国必须立即制定环境可持续健康研究战略。生物库在过去几十年里急剧扩张，大型生物库现在是英国的中流砥柱，包括英国生物库和即将成立的我们的未来健康。虽然生物库支持广泛的健康研究人员，但它们也与意外的环境影响有关，包括自然资源的开采和消耗、碳排放、废物、危险化学品的生产以及对生物多样性的影响。该项目的重点是与英国国民健康保险制度承诺的到2050年实现净零碳排放相一致的碳排放的影响。生物库排放的一个主要来源是将生物样本储存在超低温(ULT)下。该项目旨在评估生物库的两种ULT储存选择：ULT冷冻机和液氮(LN2)的碳排放。利用三个生物库的案例研究方法，该项目将评估与每种储存方式相关的直接碳排放量，以及其生产、制造和运输所产生的具体碳排放量。它还将考虑不同的存储配置如何影响这些评估，包括分散式和集中式ULT冰柜存储，以及现场生成LN2和交付LN2。最后，它将评估每种存储方法和配置的相应财务成本。这些评估将在两个利益相关者研讨会中汇集在一起，这两个研讨会将探索与每个存储战略(财务、社会、政治等)相关的可感知的驱动因素和障碍，包括个别研究人员在选择特定选项而不是另一个选项时存在的压力。为了尽可能避免以碳为中心，他们还将讨论碳排放和其他环境影响之间的相互关系，以及它们之间的权衡。这些讲习班还将用于共同设计指导方针，说明各机构和资助者如何最好地支持研究人员实现环境上最可持续的生物库做法。

The UK has made a commitment to achieve net-zero by 2050. To achieve this, the UK must develop environmentally sustainable health research strategies immediately. Biobanks have expanded dramatically over the past few decades and large-scale biobanks are now a mainstay in the UK, including UK Biobank and the forthcoming Our Futures Health. While biobanks support a wide range of health researchers, they are also associated with unintended environmental impacts, including natural resource extraction and consumption, carbon emissions, waste, the production of hazardous chemicals, and impacts on biodiversity. This project focuses on their impacts associated with carbon emissions in line with the NHS's promise to reach net-zero by 2050. A primary source of a biobank's emissions comes from the storage of biological samples at ultra-low temperatures (ULTs). This project aims to assess the carbon emissions associated with two ULT storage options for biobanks: ULT freezers and liquid nitrogen (LN2). Using a case study approach of three biobanking sites, this project will assess both the direct carbon emissions associated with each storage option, as well as the embodied carbon emissions from their production, manufacturing and transport. It will also consider how different storage configurations affect these assessments, including decentralised versus centralised ULT freezer storage, and generating LN2 on-site versus having it delivered. Finally, it will assess the accompanying financial costs for each storage approach and configuration. These assessments will be drawn together in two stakeholder workshops that will explore the perceived drivers and barriers associated with each storage strategy (financial, social, political etc), including what pressures exist for individual researchers to choose a particular option as opposed to another. As much as possible and to refrain from being carbon-centric, they will also discuss the inter-relationship between carbon emissions and other environmental impacts, and any trade-offs between them. These workshops will also be used to co-design guidelines on how institutions and funders can best support researchers to attain the most environmentally sustainable biobanking practices.