International biobanks: do or do not?

There is no question that biobanks have become essential in clinical research. Clini-cians and researchers alike recognize that patient-tailored precision medicine can only be performed after large-scale investigation of well-powered datasets, in which data from complex, multifactorial diseases have been meticulously defined [1]. In order to collect biomaterial and data from sufficient subjects and/or patients, many biobanks are now multi-institutional or even multinational. This comes with specific issues, mainly concerning definitions and standardization, but also diversity in ethics and regulations. Biobank First off, what constitutes a biobank? The most conventional definition is a collection of biomaterial plus associated clinical data [2]. The biomaterial can be any material collected from a subject, but most often consists of blood and/or DNA, and sometimes tissue from a diseased site such as a tumor. For the sake of this editorial we only discuss human biobanks, but biobanks can also be derived from experimental animal studies, or even cell lines. Biobanks can be population-based or may be disease-specific [3]. In short, population biobanks are large, organized, searchable repositories that are national or international in scope. Over a number of years, these collections aim to follow a cohort of individuals to assess the impact of a variety of factors (e.g., income, lifestyle and environment) on disease status and their progression. Disease-specific biobanks have the advantage of offering insight into the genetic basis of rare conditions as well as that of more common diseases [3]. For most of this editorial we will focus on disease-specific biobanks. Biomaterial The biomaterial and its procurement, preservation and analysis have to be strictly defined and standardized, especially in multicenter and international biobanks. Not only does this standardization have to be defined a priori, but also a quality control system has to be in place to monitor the adherence to definitions and performance of the participating centers. Only by proper standardization does the biobank contain sufficient and accurate data for further investigations. Whatever biomaterial is collected, it has to be related to the scientific purposes of the bio-bank. A problem with this might come from the fact that often biobanks collect samples over many years and thus the material itself plus the standard operating procedures have to be defined in a time when the eventual use is not yet clear. In our own experience, the collection of tumor RNA from a large number of breast cancer patients over the years using a …