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的健康研究战略。在过去的几十年里，生物银行急剧扩张，大规模的生物银行现在是英国的支柱，包括英国生物银行和即将到来的我们未来的健康。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，包括自然资源开采和消费，碳排放，废物，危险化学品的生产以及对生物多样性的影响。该项目重点关注与碳排放相关的影响，符合NHS到2050年实现净零排放的承诺。生物库排放的一个主要来源是在超低温（ULT）下储存生物样本。该项目旨在评估与生物库的两种可再生能源储存方案相关的碳排放：冷冻机和液氮（LN 2）。使用三个生物库站点的案例研究方法，该项目将评估与每个存储选项相关的直接碳排放，以及其生产，制造和运输的隐含碳排放。它还将考虑不同的存储配置如何影响这些评估，包括分散式与集中式冷藏库存储，以及现场生成LN2与交付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上进行，这些研讨会将探讨与每个存储策略相关的感知驱动因素和障碍（财务，社会，政治等），包括个体研究人员选择特定选项而不是另一个选项的压力。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，以及它们之间的任何权衡。这些研讨会还将用于共同设计指导方针，指导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实践。

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.