Response to 'The Biobank Act as a route to responsible research: A first step for Taiwan?'

Regarding to the article written by Dr. Ching-Yi Liu, on behalf of the Department of Health, I would like to make the following comments. First of all, the amended Biobank Act on Article 29 and Article 30 has been passed by the Legislative Yuan and came into effect on January 26, 2011. Amended Article 29 has already specified that Articles 6, 15, 16, and 20 shall apply, where appropriate, to those biomedical researches not using the biologic specimens, derivatives, relevant data, and information from the biobank. In addition, for those genetic analyses that could not be carried out in Taiwan or due to other special reasons could be exported under the approval of the Competent Authority if the biological specimens are not from the biobank. Furthermore, the corrective process has also been postponed until February 2012 in the amended Article 30 as well. As for the research area a biobank could serve, a biobank can serve genetic and nongenetic research that has been approved by the institutional review board and