Erik Steinfelder was appointed as the new Director General of BBMRI-ERIC. He succeeds Professor Jan-Eric Litton, who has held this role since 2014.

Steinfelder’s vision for BBMRI- ERIC in the coming years is to “build and strengthen value-added sustainable biobanking for all stakeholders”. His work will focus on developing and marketing a new value proposition and intensifying existing biobank connections. At the same time, he will also place greater emphasis on pharma, clinics, patients and the industry to expand different forms of cooperation. Another focus area will be the importance of biobanking for precision medicine.

Before starting his new position at BBMRI- ERIC Steinfelder has worked for Thermo Fisher Scientific, a multinational biotechnology product development company based in the US. In his role as Biobank Commercial Leader of the EMEA region, he was responsible for Thermo Fisher Scientific's entire biobank portfolio. In 2017 he was appointed Corporate Account Executive. He was also President of the ESBB between 2014 and 2017.

Erik Steinfelder already moved with his family to Graz where the headquarter of BBMRI-ERIC resides. His aim is to have a maximum of transparency about the BBMRI activities by monthly reports and regular tele-conferences with the national node directors to have their feedback. “We do look forward to hear more about his visions for the future directions of BBMRI-ERIC at our national symposium in December where he agreed to give the key note lecture,” says German Node Director Cornelia Rufenach.