ABSTRACT

The article deals with the protection of individual rights in the field of biobanks, focusing on the issues related to the keeping of informed consent requirement in researches on biological samples or genetic data already stocked. The very nature of informed consent, described as a moral choice, leads to the need to inform the person from whom the samples or thedata come from and to ask for his/her consent. Even though the person is not physically touched, nevertheless he/she has a protected interest in deciding if the research is consistent or inconsistent with his/her moral structure and idea of medical progress.