Raising the Awareness of Biobanking in the Swiss Population Through Higher Education

Abstract

The focus of today's medicine is changing from medical treatments for the “average patient” to individualized therapy. In recent years, the promotion of personalized medicine has also become an increasingly important topic in Switzerland, leading to the establishment of the Swiss Personalized Health Network (SPHN), an initiative of the Swiss Federal Government founded in 2017, and the Swiss Biobanking Platform (SBP), initiated by the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) in 2016. Despite this governmental organization, the path to individual treatment can only be taken together with the Swiss population; Personalized medicine and its research depend on the willingness of many to share their health data, biological samples, and genetic information. Brall et al., (2021) reported in their survey on the “Swiss public’s willingness to participate in personalized health research and biobanking”, that research on personalized health is supported by slightly more than half of the Swiss population. The restraint of many survey participants was traced back to concerns about discrimination, confidentiality, and misuse of data and samples. The knowledge of, and trust in biobanking institutions, to which they donated their samples and data are key. Essential conclude that missing awareness of biobanking leads to low participation. With this master thesis, I would like to investigate the potential to raise the awareness of biobanking in the Swiss population through higher education. In collaboration with the Bern University of Teacher Education, a teaching unit for biobanking in high schools will be developed and evaluated with a tailored questionnaire for the students. The teaching unit is intended to incorporate the current Swiss educational trends of interdisciplinary and digital transformation. Furthermore, in the context of the “Agenda 2030” of the United Nations and their initiative for the Education for Sustainable Development (ESD), the Swiss Federal government and the cantons have declared “Bildung zur Nachhaltigen Entwicklung (BNE)” as their common education policy goal. The importance of addressing the field of biobanking in the context of ESD will thus be discussed in this master thesis too.

Date of Award	2022
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	Medical University Graz
Supervisor	Karine Sargsyan (Supervisor)