BIOBANKING CONCEPT FOR ANIMAL RESEARCH
A biospecimen biobank (biobank) is defined as a facility where biological materials (e.g., serum, pathological specimens, genomic material) from human research subjects are stored for secondary research. The design, operations, material collected, and plans for use and/or sharing for secondary research, determine which regulations apply, the level of IRB review and oversight required. Biobanking is an important tool for enhancing medical research and scientific knowledge. Simply put, biobanking is the process of collecting biological samples from a human subject for use in research purposes.
Biobanking refers to the process by which samples of bodily fluid or tissue are collected for research use to improve our understanding of health and disease (see ‘Types of biobanking sample ’). Other information, such as height, weight and questions about things that may have a bearing on health (e.g. family history and lifestyle) may also be recorded at the same time, to provide the context for the samples. Often the samples are kept indefinitely or for several years, depending on the study, so that long term future research can be carried out. The researchers may track the health of the participants by looking at their past and future medical records, but only if people have given them permission to.
Over the last decade, approximately 75% of the new diseases in humans were caused by pathogens from animals or animal products. Moreover, globalisation has led to an extensive and rapid movement of person and distribution of animals and animal products contributing to the spread of pathogens. This highlights the importance of investigating the role of the animal reservoir in maintaining and spreading such pathogens.
A Veterinary biobank enables the storage of samples useful for cross-species disease surveillance, to investigate cross-species disease transmission through comparative medicine and environmental research. The availability of samples correctly stored, identified and traced lead to an intensive research activity and resulted in analysis, publishing and dissemination of important epizoological data to the international scientific community on zoonotic viruses such as avian influenza.
Modern biobanks permit large-scale analysis for individuation of specific diseases biomarkers starting from biological or digital material (i.e., bioimages) with well-annotated clinical and biological data. These features are essential for improving personalized medical approaches, where effective biomarker identification is a critical step for disease diagnosis and prognosis.
Increasing the availability of high-quality biological samples through biobanks has the potential to advance global health research and speed up progress towards Sustainable Development Goals such as achieving universal health coverage, a UN science summit has heard.
Biobanking is the process by which samples of bodily fluid or tissue are collected, annotated, stored and redistributed for research to improve understanding of health and diseases.
The COVID-19 pandemic underlined the value of this gathering and processing of samples and related data, as scientists scrambled to develop effective vaccines and treatments.
Sample Collection
Biobanking doesn’t only involve collecting biological samples such as blood; information from participants is also collected as part of a sample. This data includes their age, weight, blood type, and other underlying medical conditions.
This information is, of course, confidential and is protected by the biobanking facility. All individuals who handle the data collection or interact with it at any time are legally obligated to protect it.
Sample collection differs across different types of biobanks and ultimately depends on the purpose of the biobank.
For example, a biobank that aims to study the progression of diseases through time may store the samples for several years. In some cases, the samples collected may be used in one study and then reused for another one.
Benefits of Biobanking
Biobanking enables researchers to save the time and effort required to find participants for a study. Since the data is already available in one place, it can be further researched anytime, making biobanking more convenient and cutting down on research time.
Several parties use biobanking for educational purposes. Universities, hospitals, research facilities, and centers for particular diseases are some of the parties that use biobanking.
It also helps us to gain more insight into the effect our DNA has on our health. Research using biobanking also aids in the study of incurable diseases such as Alzheimer’s.
Finding a cure may be indefinite, but the more we’re able to study these diseases, the more insight we gain into their characteristics.
Time Length
Depending on the type of study being performed, participants may be asked for one-time sample collection or different samples collected over a time period.
Participants can agree to the terms and conditions beforehand and even have the option to stop participating in further stages of the biobanking process if they wish to. In some cases, people donate their complete bodies for research purposes after their death that have to be cryogenically frozen.
Technological Advancement in Biobanking
As technological advancement occurs in the medical arena, many biobanks are now facilitated using AI. This helps to gain insights into the data collected with more ease and speed.
The use of AI is predicted to become more conventional with time, which will allow researchers to use the samples in biobanking for multiple research purposes.
Biological samples need to be handled and stored carefully and in optimal conditions so as not to cause damage to them.
Temperature changes in storage facilities can affect their state too. As some biobanks store samples for many years, it’s imperative to ensure they don’t deteriorate.
Lab freezers are crucial for storing samples used in biobanking. For this purpose, the lab facilities involved in biobanking should ensure the equipment, including the lab freezers they are using, has been medically graded. The equipment used should ideally be compliant with international standards.
Biobanking is developing as a new branch of science which has a key role in biomedical research and precision medicine. It is very broad and diverse and includes sample collection, storage, research, education, funding, publishing, biobanking services, analytical services and others. Biobanks play an important role in the precision medicine, patient diagnosis and treatment, follow-up, and therapy monitoring and optimization. As per the time magazine published in 2009, biobanks are on the list of ‘10 Ideas Changing the World Right Now’. Biobanks are the home of biospecimens where biosamples are collected and stored in organized way with their clinical, social and pathological information for research, new drug discoveries and drug development. Human biospecimens stored at biobank are a precious and critical resource for the process of discovering new mechanisms causing cancer or in determining its progression, resistance or response to treatment, and clinical outcome.
Most of the biobanks are established in developed countries (~95%) especially from North America and Europe while developing countries like India struggle with the impacts of disease on a massive scale. Nowadays biobanking is an integral part of medical research and treatment. Due to lack of biobanks in less developed countries, most of the epidemiological and genetic research results published from high-income countries are more beneficial for developed countries than low and middle-income countries. Some developing countries, including Jordan, Mexico, China, Gambia, and South Africa work very hard to build biobanks and networks. In last a few years, the inclination to open a biobank has increased in private and government hospitals in India to support the dramatic development by research in diseases prevention, prediction, diagnosis and treatment. Indian government has also started to provide initial funds to start biobanks for cancer, liver and rare diseases. Currently, there are total ten different biobanks in India in which six are tumor biobanks including, National cancer Tissue Biobank and Tata Medical Center Biorepository . Southern part has four biobanks while there is no biobank in northeast and central region of the country .
Compiled & Shared by- Team, LITD (Livestock Institute of Training & Development)
Image-Courtesy-Google
Reference-On Request.
