Existing Biobanks in Ireland and Biobank Networks in other Countries
There are numerous stand-alone biobanks in Ireland and in other countries. Historically, such biobanks have not been well resourced, and vary greatly in tissue collection, quality control, sample storage, patient consent procedures and informatics. In most cases, there is insufficient material for sharing or for large translational studies. Key areas of study require large scale sample collections, and Ireland’s research community is relatively small. For mutual benefit and to ensure a co-ordinated biobanking approach, it is very important that the new Biobank Network include and resource those biobanks that are willing to adopt international guidelines and procedures.
The pioneering Biobank Network is the Spanish National Tumor Bank Network, based at the CNIO in Madrid, and under the direction of molecular pathologist, Dr Manuel Morente (visit). The Wales Cancer Bank (visit) is generally similar on a smaller scale.
In the United States, pathologists run a Co-operative Human Tissue Network for distributing samples to researchers. The National Cancer Institute in Washington (visit) regards biobanking as an essential and urgent development required for progress towards personalised medicine. The NCI is engaged in networking the biobanks of the approximately 150 institutions for which it provides funding. Having made a large investment in personnel and funds, NCI has developed a powerful bioinformatics system, CaBIG which has become the world’s gold standard. This will become available to all as an open source package.
Biobank Networks have been or are being developed in Singapore, Japan, Korea, Australia, USA, Canada, Wales, France, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Norway, Sweden, Germany, Belgium, The Netherlands, Ecuador, Brazil, Colombia, and in other countries.