Biobanking has a lot of potential for the advancement of medical research and medical discoveries but has a lot of complex ethical issues involved. For any ethical regulation and guideline to be meaningful, a bottom up understanding of issues is necessary.
The aim of the study is twofold, firstly to explore the perceptions of the general public towards biomedical research and biobanking and secondly to understand the perceptions of Ethics Committee members regarding the ethical issues in biobanking research and their role in safeguarding the interests of contributors. The study will arrive at an understanding of how this differs from the ethics of participation in general biomedical research. The study follows a qualitative methodology of in-depth interviews with key respondents selected from Bangalore and content analysis of data emerging using NVIVO and manual coding.