Open acces MeninGene Biobank

The European Meningitis Biobank (MeninGene Biobank) contains data and samples of adult patients with bacterial meningitis participating in the MeninGene study. To guarantee the privacy of patients, data in this database is stored in a anonymized fashion (for example without date of birth). The MeninGene Biobank is made public for al European bacterial meningitis researchers and requests can be submitted via the application form below.

Requests for data out of the MeninGene Biobank are examined by a committee consisting of:

• Prof. Dr. D. van de Beek – Neurologist, principal investigator
• Dr. A. van der Ende – Head of Dutch Reference Laboratory for Bacterial Meningitis
• Prof. Dr. F. Baas – Head of AMC genome analysis department
• Prof. Dr. A.H. Zwinderman - Statistician, Department of Clinical Epidemiology, Bioinformatica en Biostatistiek (KEBB), AMC
• Prof. Dr. S.L. Leib, Institute for Infectious Diseases, Bern, Swiss – President of the Meningitis study group of the European Society of Clinical Microbiology (ESCMID), president of the Swiss Society for Infectious Diseases.

Requests will be approved after a favourable decision of the medical ethical committee. To be able to process the request a preproposal can be submitted through this website with at least the following information: research institute, the research question, expected results, how the expected results will be published, how data will be stored and what computer security systems are in place at the research institute to guarantee data safety.

The permission to transfer data between the MeninGene Biobank and the applicant will be confirmed in a contract. If the results of the research project are not published in a peer-reviewed medical scientific magazine, they will have to be published in the MeninGene Biobank database (before maximal one year after accomplishment of the research project).
Furthermore, all projects will be announced on our website.

As this project is funded by the European Research Council (ERC) , a medical ethical committee has been esthablished to evaluate the ethical aspects of the MeninGene Biobank on an annual basis. This committee will rapport directly to the ERC on all research performed with the data from this project. Members are:

1. Prof. R.C. Hennekam, Head Ethical Committee, Pediatrician and Clinical Geneticist, member of the Medical Ethical Committee Academic Medical center.
2. Mr. Dr. M.C. Ploem, Legal Expert, Department of Public Health, member of the Medical Ethical Committee Academic Medical center.
3. Drs. A. Cahn, Chief Technology Officer, Hippo, Amsterdam, member Apache Software Foundation;
4. W. Witkamp, President of Dutch Meningitis Foundation, representative of patients’ interests