Biobanking Science: Biomarkers for Traumatic Brain Injury
Traumatic brain injury has been in the news lately because even mild traumatic brain injury, or concussion, can increase the risk of developing neurodegenerative diseases like Parkinson’s disease (1). Many parents have understandably been worried about their children suffering...
Biobanking Science: Biobanks Tackle Chronic Kidney Disease
Chronic kidney disease is common. The prevalence of chronic kidney disease has rapidly increased over the past 20 years, and it now affects 13% of people around the world (1). Chronic kidney disease can be difficult to treat because...
Biobanking Science: Safe Gene Therapy
Gene therapy has the potential to cure any disease caused by genetic mutations. For gene therapy to work, normal copies of genetic DNA, replacement messenger RNA or gene-editing constructs must be delivered to affected cells. Nucleic acids are rapidly...
Biobanking Science: Metabolomics Biobanks
Metabolomics, an important part of precision medicine, is the study of different metabolites in normal and disease states. Collecting, processing and storing samples for metabolomics studies presents unique challenges for biobanks.
Metabolites are small (low molecular weight) and unstable molecules....
Biobanking Science: Cancer Biobanks
Cancer is major cause of death worldwide and mortality levels remain high despite the development of new therapeutics and other cancer treatments. Cancer biobanks are an integral part of the fight against cancer because they facilitate research into new...
Biobanking Science: Vitamin D Deficiency and Colorectal Cancer
Colorectal cancer is the third most common cancer and causes over 50,000 deaths a year in the US alone (1,2). People with vitamin D deficiency may have an increased risk of developing various cancers, including colorectal cancer, according to...
Biobanking Science: Patient Attitudes to Precision Medicine Studies
Governments and research organizations around the world are conducting large long-term precision medicine projects to understand how genetic and lifestyle factors cause disease. Longitudinal projects such as the UK Biobank and the Precision Medicine Initiative in the US collect...
Biobanking Science: Tackling Antibiotic Resistance
Antibiotic resistance is a major health issue. More than 700,000 people around the world die from antibiotic-resistant bacterial infections every year—23,000 of those are in the United States (1). If we don’t find a solution, the number of deaths...
Biobanking Science: Brainstorm Consortium Finds Genetic Link for Brain Diseases
One of the major benefits of biobanking is the ability to safely collect and store large numbers of biological samples. This allows researchers to generate large datasets to study the genetic cause of various diseases. The Brainstorm Consortium uses...
Biobanking Science: Disease Patterns in UK Biobank Data
The UK Biobank is one of the biggest biobanking projects in the world with samples and data from over 500,000 participants aged 40 to 69 years. UK Biobank participants allow doctors to take repeat physiological measurements such as blood...
