What is a biobank?
Biobanks collect and store under standardized conditions biological samples of patients, such as tissue, blood, and urine, together with the associated data. The data includes information about the patient, for instance diagnosis and treatment. Therefore, biobanks are fundamental for clinical research, which aims to constantly improve diagnosis, prognosis, therapy monitoring, and treatment of patients.
Biobanks are strongly regulated to meet highest ethical and scientific needs as well as data protection.
BioBank Bonn
The Medical Faculty of the University Hospital Bonn decided in 2016 to establish the BioBank Bonn as a service for physicians and researchers to support clinical research. In July 2016 the project manager, as first staff member of the BioBank Bonn, started to improve the already existing structures of the tissue biobank and the liquid biopsy biobank. The IMBIE supports the biobank by providing the IT-platform and implementing the database.
The BioBank Bonn is organized by three different institutes:
- Institute of Clinical Chemistry and Clinical Pharmacology (IKP) – liquid biopsy biobank
- Institute of Pathology – tissue biobank
- Institute of Medical Biometry, Informatics and Epidemiology (IMBIE) – technical structure for data management
The BioBank Bonn provides the following services:
- High quality sample collection under standardized storage conditions
- Secure database- and IT-structures
- Support to conduct clinical trials
- Compliance with the Data Protection
- Compliance with ethical guidelines