What Is A Biobank Updated

What is a Biobank?

Biobanks contain biological samples

and often

the data derived from them.

A biobank can contain…

 blood

tissues…like tumors

DNA

health information

What about personal information: 

birth date

self-reported race?

sex

Yes!

Biobanks are accessed by many people 

Many researchers at many institutions

Many researchers at many biotech companies

Research using biobanks is not related

to

stem cell research

human cloning

Oversight and responsibility for the biological samples and data

are negotiated between the biobank and... 

Research institutions and their researchers

Funding bodies (National Institute of Health)

Ethics boards (Institutional Review Boards)

Local, state, national, and international legislatures

Data given to researchers can (often) be linked back to the

primary biobank source

Can researchers tell where the data comes from?

Why are they linked back to the biobank? 

In case the researcher has questions about the biological sample

So the data generated by the researcher can be given back to the biobank (to the

collective)

In case someone wants their sample removed from the biobank

To keep track of the samples…

How are they linked back to the biobank? 

Using an anonymous identifier

randomly assigned

to each unique person

like “E129Y472J95’

Biobanks are often called…

Biorepositories

Biotrusts

Large cohort studies

Biolibraries

These are each similar but not quite the same.