ISO/TC 276 - Biotechnology

This document specifies the general requirements for and gives guidance on quality assessments of nucleic acid samples. It specifies general guidelines for library preparations and library quality assessments prior to sequencing and data generation.

This document specifies requirements for the collection, reception, preparation, preservation, transport, storage, distribution, destruction and disposal of biological materials obtained from animals, excluding humans. Such resources include solid tissues, fluid samples and associated cells, excretory products and associated data. This document is applicable to biological material or associated data, or both, that can be used for research and development and to biomolecules derived from the biological material, e.g. nucleic acids, proteins and metabolites. This document is applicable to all organizations performing biobanking for research and development. This document does not apply to biological material intended for food or feed production, laboratories undertaking analysis for food or feed production, or therapeutic use, or multiple of them. This document does not apply to the establishment of cell lines derived from animal biological material. NOTE International, national or regional regulations or requirements, or multiple of them, can also apply to specific topics covered in this document.

This document defines terms related to genome editing technology. This document is applicable to general use of genome editing across species.

This document specifies requirements for the collection, preparation, preservation, transportation, storage, distribution and disposal of plant biological materials and associated data. This document is applicable only to biological material that can be used for further processing of biomolecules, e.g. nucleic acids, proteins and metabolites. This document is applicable to all organizations performing plant biobanking for research and development.

This document specifies minimum requirements and general considerations for equipment, consisting of hardware, software and consumables, used in the manufacturing of cells for therapeutic use. This includes equipment for processing cells for therapeutic use starting from cell isolation/selection, expansion, washing and volume reduction, from cell finish through to cryopreservation for the storage of cells for therapeutic use. This document gives guidance on the design, use and maintenance of equipment and equipment systems to both suppliers and users from aspects including the target parties, i.e. supplier or user, and phase of involved task, i.e. design, use or maintenance. This document is applicable to any unit operation system that is used, alone or in combination, for the manufacturing of cells for therapeutic use, meeting user requirements. It is applicable to devices used for the purpose of monitoring equipment status. It does not apply to: processing equipment for cells for therapeutic use used at the point of care; devices used for analytical purposes; biosafety cabinets, general cell culture equipment (such as CO2 incubators, etc.), and software to control multiple equipment systems or multiple unit operations.

This document provides general requirements for the testing of cellular therapeutic products intended for human use. This document also provides considerations for the characterization of cellular therapeutic products, including approaches to select and design analytical methods that are fit for purpose. Such considerations can be used to establish critical quality attributes for a cellular therapeutic product. This document is applicable to cellular starting materials (including those for tissue engineered products) and intermediates of cellular therapeutic products. This document is not applicable to tissues used in transplantation.

This document reviews best practices that: a) respect the existing standardization efforts of life sciences research communities; b) normalize key aspects of data description particularly at the level of the biology being studied (and shared) across the life sciences communities; c) ensure that data are “findable” and useable by other researchers; and d) provide guidance and metrics for assessing the applicability of a particular data sharing plan. This document is applicable to domains in life sciences including biotechnology, genomics (including massively parallel nucleotide sequencing, metagenomics, epigenomics and functional genomics), transcriptomics, translatomics, proteomics, metabolomics, lipidomics, glycomics, enzymology, immunochemistry, life science imaging, synthetic biology, systems biology, systems medicine and related fields.

This document specifies general requirements and recommendations for quality assessments and control of massively parallel sequencing (MPS) data. It covers post raw data generation procedures, sequencing alignments, and variant calling. This document also gives general guidelines for validation and documentation of MPS data. This document does not apply to any processes related to de novo assembly.

This document specifies process and quality requirements for the biobanking of mammalian (including human) cell lines. It describes requirements for the fundamental procedures of the biobank handling cell lines, such as establishment, reception, identification, propagation, preservation, storage, quality control, and distribution of cell lines. This document can be used by organizations performing biobanking activities with mammalian cell lines used for research and development, biobank users, organizations and schemes using peer-assessment and accreditation bodies. This document does not apply to biological material intended for therapeutic use. NOTE International, national or regional regulations or requirements can also apply to specific topics covered in this document.

This document specifies requirements for data management and publication in microbial resource centres (MRCs) to enable consistent formatting, and a quality control workflow to improve the overall quality of data. It also provides recommendations for MRCs to improve data sharing and integration of microbial material and associated data. This document is intended to facilitate procedures such as accessioning, acquisition, authentication, preservation, storage, and distribution, and can be used by MRCs, regulatory authorities, organizations, and schemes using peer-assessment to confirm or recognize the competence of MRCs in data management and publication NOTE International, national and/or regional regulations or requirements can also apply to specific topics covered in this document.

This document specifies general requirements and reviews the points to consider for the transportation of cells for therapeutic use, including storage during transportation. Transportation starts from the transfer of the packaged cells by the sender to the transportation service provider and ends when the package is delivered to the receiver at its destination. This document does not apply to transportation of cells within one facility. This document includes the development of a transportation plan including verification and validation, communication between the client and the transportation service provider, and associated documentation. This document does not specify particular conditions for transportation such as specification for shipping container, ambient temperature control, etc.

This document specifies the validation and verification requirements applicable to a biobank to be able to demonstrate that it operates its processing of biological materials with validated and/or verified methods that are fit for purpose. This document is intended for use in the implementation and validation of processing methods for biological materials. This document covers method validation and verification for the production of all biological materials. This document does not apply to biological material intended for food/feed production, laboratories undertaking food/feed analysis, and/or therapeutic use. Reference material production is not covered in this document. For the production requirements for reference materials, see ISO 17034.

This document provides guidance to biobanks on how to implement the quality management, management, and technical requirements of ISO 20387. It expands on aspects of ISO 20387 and provides examples for illustration purposes. The aim of this document is to assist biobanks to address competency of personnel and appropriate quality of biological material and data collections. This document is equally applicable to newly established and existing biobanks. This document is applicable to all organizations performing biobanking, including biobanking of biological material from multicellular organisms (e.g., human, animal, fungus and plant) and microorganisms for research and development. This document does not apply to biological material intended for feed/food production, laboratories undertaking analysis for food/feed production and/or therapeutic use.

This document specifies minimum requirements for the production and quality control of synthesized oligonucleotides (nominally up to 250 bases). This document also describes general quality attributes for synthesized oligonucleotides as well as common methods for evaluating quality attributes.

This document provides a method for evaluating aspects of the quality of a cell counting measurement process for a specific cell preparation through a set of quality indicators derived from a dilution series experimental design and statistical analysis. The quality indicators are based on repeatability of the measurement and the degree to which the results conform to an ideal proportional response to dilution. This method is applicable to total, differential, direct and indirect cell counting measurement processes, provided that the measurement process meets the criteria of the experimental design (e.g. cells are suspended in a solution). This method is most suitable during cell counting method development, optimization, validation, evaluation and/or verification of cell counting measurement processes. This method is especially applicable in cases where an appropriate reference material to assess accuracy is not readily available. This method does not directly provide the accuracy of the cell count. This method is primarily applicable to eukaryotic cells. NOTE Several sector/application specific international and national standards for cell counting exist. Where applicable, consulting existing standards when operating within their scope can be helpful.

This document provides generic requirements for evaluating the performance and ensuring the quality of methods used for the quantification of specific nucleic acid sequences (targets). This document is applicable to the quantification of DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) and RNA (ribonucleic acid) target sequences using either digital (dPCR) or quantitative real-time PCR (qPCR) amplification technologies. It applies to target sequences present in nucleic acid molecules including double-stranded DNA (dsDNA) such as genomic DNA (gDNA) and plasmid DNA, single stranded DNA (ssDNA), complementary DNA (cDNA), and single stranded RNA (ssRNA) including ribosomal RNA (rRNA), messenger RNA (mRNA), and long and short non-coding RNA [microRNAs (miRNAs) and short interfering RNAs (siRNAs)], as well as double-stranded RNA (dsRNA). This document applies to nucleic acids derived from biological sources such as viruses, prokaryotic and eukaryotic cells, cell-free biological fluids (e.g. plasma or cell media) or in vitro sources [e.g. oligonucleotides, synthetic gene constructs and in vitro transcribed (IVT) RNA]. This document is not applicable to quantification of very short DNA oligonucleotides ( This document covers: — analytical design including quantification strategies (nucleic acid copy number quantification using a calibration curve as in qPCR or through molecular counting as in dPCR, quantification relative to an independent sample and ratio measurements) and use of controls; — quantification of total nucleic acid mass concentration and quality control of a nucleic acid sample including assessment of nucleic acid quality (purity and integrity); — PCR assay design, optimization, in silico and in vitro specificity testing; — data quality control and analysis including acceptance criteria, threshold setting and normalization; — method validation (precision, linearity, limit of quantification, limit of detection, trueness and robustness) with specific requirements for qPCR and dPCR; — approaches to establishing metrological traceability and estimating measurement uncertainty. This document does not provide requirements or acceptance criteria for the sampling of biological materials or processing of biological samples (i.e. collection, preservation, transportation, storage, treatment and nucleic acid extraction). Nor does it provide requirements and acceptance criteria for specific applications (e.g. food or clinical applications where specific matrix issues can arise).

This document provides guidance for ancillary material (AM) suppliers to maintain a high level of lot-to-lot consistency in the aspects of identity, purity, stability, biosafety, performance, as well as the accompanying documentation. This document is applicable to cellular therapeutic products, including gene therapy products whereby cells form part of the final product. It does not apply to products without cells. The AMs described in this document include those of biological origin [e.g. sera, media (including media additives), growth factors, and monoclonal antibodies] and chemical origin. This document does not address dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) for cryopreservation, beads, scaffolds, feeder cells, apparatus and instruments, or additives used post bioprocessing. This document does not cover the selection, assessment or control of starting materials and excipients. NOTE International, regional or national regulations or requirements can also apply to specific topics covered in this document.

This document specifies definitions and general requirements for ancillary materials (AMs) used in cell processing of cellular therapeutic products. This document is applicable to cellular therapeutic products, including those gene therapy products whereby cells form part of the final product. It does not apply to products without cells. This document does not cover the selection, assessment or control of starting materials and excipients. NOTE International, regional or national regulations or requirements can also apply to specific topics covered in this document.

This document provides guidance for ancillary material (AM) users. It is applicable to cellular therapeutic products, including those gene therapy products whereby cells form part of the final product. It does not apply to products without cells. This document focuses primarily on ancillary materials (AMs) of biological (human and animal) origin and their potential impurities and contaminants. NOTE 1 The decision chart in Figure 1 illustrates the rationale underlying the scope of this document. However, diverse biological sources, including plants, insects and marine organisms, can also be used in the development of a cellular therapeutic product. Therefore the fundamental principles of risk management also apply for these sources of AMs. This document does not cover the selection, assessment or control of starting materials and excipients. However, it is anticipated that these are still covered by general risk management procedures. This document is applicable for users at all stages of clinical development and supply; however maximum benefits can be gained by the implementation of the recommendations in the early stages of development. NOTE 2 International, regional or national regulations or requirements can also apply to specific topics covered in this document.

This document specifies general requirements for the competence, impartiality and consistent operation of biobanks including quality control requirements to ensure biological material and data collections of appropriate quality. This document is applicable to all organizations performing biobanking, including biobanking of biological material from multicellular organisms (e.g. human, animal, fungus and plant) and microorganisms for research and development. Biobank users, regulatory authorities, organizations and schemes using peer-assessment, accreditation bodies, and others can also use this document in confirming or recognizing the competence of biobanks. This document does not apply to biological material intended for food/feed production, laboratories undertaking analysis for food/feed production, and/or therapeutic use. NOTE 1 International, national or regional regulations or requirements can also apply to specific topics covered in this document. NOTE 2 For entities handling human materials procured and used for diagnostic and treatment purposes ISO 15189 and other clinical standards are intended to apply first and foremost.

ISO 20391-1:2018 defines terms related to cell counting for biotechnology. It describes counting of cells in suspension (generally cell concentration) and cells adhered to a substrate (generally area density of cells). It provides key considerations for general counting methods (including total and differential counting, and direct and indirect counting) as well as for method selection, measurement process, and data analysis and reporting. ISO 20391-1:2018 is applicable to the counting of all cell types ? mammalian and non-mammalian (e.g. bacteria, yeast) cells. ISO 20391-1:2018 is not intended for counting of cells while in a tissue section or a biomaterial matrix. Several sector/application-specific international and national standards for cell counting currently exist. When applicable, the user can consult existing standards when operating within their scope (specific measurement techniques and/or applications).