The world around us is constantly being transformed by scientific discovery. Traditionally, the term biobank was used to describe the biorepository that stored biological tissues. Today, that context is broadening. The biobanks store more information than ever before. A biobank continues to store human tissue, but many are moving to more specialized storage. Biorepositories focus on disease-based biospecimens, genetic material, specimens of endangered species, and non-human materials. Defining biobanking in such a broad sense opens up a new world of possibilities for researchers dedicated to studying both human and non-human populations.
A New Era of Medicine
As the biobank expands, so does the medical world. There are many new fields and disciplines offering countless possible applications. In today’s modern medical world, patients, researchers, and health professionals work together more in order to gather new insights. These new insights are used to develop new types of diagnosis and treatment options. Biobanks are one example of the recent shift in modern research methods. There are different biobanking efforts on a global scale, including institutional, national, and international biobank settings. Biobanks are helpful when studying complex diseases such as diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and cancer. This information becomes invaluable when it can be linked it patient information included in medical records and questionnaires. The biobanking industry has benefited from post-genomic analysis, computer and bioinformatic development, and human genome sequencing.
A New Face of Biobanking
Biobanks house extensive stores of human biological materials. Agriculture, drug development, and medical research contribute valuable information about plants, microbes, and animals. Ecology biobanks contribute to the accessibility of these and other types of biosamples. The diversity of materials stored in biobanks is revolutionizing personalized medicine because of the increased ability to share data. Genetic and biological data are not stored in a single lab, which allows researchers access to greater amounts of data that can be shared with other researchers.
Research and Biobanks
Biobanks are fulfilling an important role in helping to advance research and improve healthcare delivery. A biobank makes high-quality, well-characterized, and related biosamples and data available for research analysis. Therefore, to meet current growing demands, biobanks must create a greater capacity and improve informatics capabilities. Human biological samples stored in cryogenic facilities can revolutionize medicine by giving researchers access to the information they need to study the relationship between disease and genetics. Each year, researchers and scientists save lives through biobanking which allows them to investigate diseases.
Biobanks are an invaluable source of data for genomics, therapeutic target generation, metabolomics, molecular epidemiology, and proteomics. When used as a tool, biobanks significantly contribute to medical research, help with the understanding of disease etiology, translation research, and the advancement of public health. Data continues to become increasingly important for medical researchers as they continue to expand their thinking past traditional medicine and possibilities. Samples and data need to be collected and administered from numerous sources. Big data refers to computerized technologies and software developed and designed to extract knowledge from large amounts of heterogeneous data, including biological data. In fact, computer-based mechanisms are necessary to achieve such a high-velocity capture, discovery, and process. Big data requires different parameters which directly impact biobanking, including data analysis and storage requirements.
Final Thoughts
The further development of the biobanking infrastructure is expected to play an important role in the growth of scientific knowledge, which will transform the world. Biobanking impacts how we understand human health, personalize medicine, develop medications and treatment options, and much more.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29412882/
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/322040130_Biospecimens_and_Biobanking_in_Global_Health
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/lab/lab-biosafety-guidelines.html
