Why do we Need an Irish Biobank Network?
Greatly increased cancer research funding has been made available over the past ten years, but we need a much better translational research infrastructure. For Irish cancer patients to benefit from the latest advances in molecular research, it is essential that fresh, frozen and paraffin-embedded human tissue specimens and blood are acquired prospectively with patient consent in the main cancer hospitals. Samples should be managed in a biobank, and released for approved basic research and clinically directed molecular pathology investigations. For the latter studies, coded data about the sample donors is essential.
The network hospital biobanks collect samples using the same procedures and computer software. Restricted anonymised sample and patient data from participating hospitals will be entered on a master database, which researchers with passwords can view and interrogate via the Biobank Ireland website.
Online access to samples and data for potential projects will be a major advantage of linking Irish hospital biobanks in a network. It will maximise our resources and expertise. It will facilitate current and future research consortia and translational research collaborations on a scale not possible now. It will broaden the scope of Irish collaborations with other international groups and European networks.
A Biobank Network will enhance or complement other aims of national cancer strategy: information technology systems including those for histopathology, national research database, communications, and help to connect hospitals and focus on patient care rather than on competing institutions.
Other advantages: research efficiency and research quality, enhanced sample quality, coordinated access to samples by industry aswell as academics, molecular studies on samples from clinical trials patients, and wider benefits to the economy due to job creation and increased industry involvement in R and D.
Translating new research discoveries into patient care in Ireland will help refine the diagnosis, predict outcome and treatment response, and eventually lead to more individualised treatments. This is an essential step towards winning the battle against cancer.
Examples of recent advances in patient care, originating in this way are: Glivec for patients with chronic myeloid leukaemia and GIST (a rare gastrointestinal malignancy), anti-CD20 antibody treatment for malignant lymphoma, and Herceptin for aggressive breast cancer. Each of these treatments has significantly prolonged quality life, by applying logically the knowledge of molecular cell processes to develop innovative, selective and in many cases, non-toxic cancer treatment.
Finally, the biobanking infrastructure proposed here might be modified for use in translational research on other human diseases, including multiple sclerosis, Alzheimer’s, and renal glomerular disease, or further adapted for molecular epidemiology studies.