“The body as a source of biological samples”: an analysis of the conceptualization of the body as a medical-scientific object in the Portuguese legislation on biobanks

Abstract

Biobanks are repositories of human biological samples associated with clinical data, systematically collected, to be used in biomedical research.

The kind of data collected, and the nature of research enforce to safeguard citizens’ rights and to define the possibilities and limits of action of these infrastructures, commonly through legislation.

This analysis tries to identify in the Portuguese legislation how the biobanks are defined, which are their possibilities for their organization and governance, who are the actors considered and which rights are considered.

With this goal, it was performed a document analysis of the legal framework assisted by CAQDAS (Computer Assisted Qualitative Data Analysis Software). This evidenced that, although these infrastructures are mentioned in the healthcare setting, the idea of scientific research is still absent or quite limited, clearly restraining the establishment and development of these repositories in Portugal.