About biobanks

What is a biobank?

A biobank contains samples of biological material (plant, animal or human) which are stored along with related data. Biobanks of human samples can contain tissue, DNA, and/or blood and can be stored for 20 years or more.

Biobanks of human samples are linked to information about the people who provided the samples. This can include name, sex, age, health records, lifestyle, family history of disease, and so on. The information is stored in a computer database.

What are biobanks for?

Biobanks are developed and used for many reasons. Some uses are health-related and others are not. These include:

• clinical care of people having medical treatment, including diagnosing diseases
• researching the causes of diseases
• studying new drugs, prevention, treatments or cures
• organ transplantation
• forensics, including criminal investigations and autopsies

In our forum, we will talk mainly about research biobanks.

How are research biobanks created?

Samples are mainly collected from two groups:

• people with a specific disease or condition, such as cystic fibrosis
• the general public

Each biobank may have less than 100 samples or more than 100,000.