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Biobanks are becoming an increasingly important infrastructure in the age of personalized medicine. As he points out Eva Ortega-Paino of the National Cancer Research Center (CNIO)“for every sample that patients give us there is great hope; in return, we must give them the answers, the knowledge gained through the research that these samples make possible“. Ortega runs the CNIO biobank, at one time the first bank to promote the tumor network in Spain, and which today, for Spanish researchers, is the door to one of the largest international biobank networks.
And this is what, for the researcher, “biobanks are the way in which society directly participates in research and plays an increasingly leading role.” “Without the information we collect from samples, it would be impossible to advance in early cancer detection and in therapies that are increasingly being developed for patients with fewer side effects.“, Add.
the international cooperation
Biobanks collect, store and manage all types of biological samples. They are in between solid tissues (tumors, hair, nails) or fluids (blood) and substances such as urine, feces or saliva that are accompanied by clinical findings. In these infrastructures, the material is processed according to high quality standards and in accordance with strict rules and ethical principles based on the consent of the patient.
He The CNIO Biobank contains over 8,500 samples of lymphomas, gynecological and digestive neoplasms, breast carcinomas, non-neoplastic cases, and primary skin cultures.. In total, it contains more than 36,000 tissue samples. This biobank is part of the National Platform for Biobanks and Biomodels of the Carlos III Health Institute (ISCIII), in which this area, coordinated by Eva Ortega-Paino, has 57 biobanks.
Besides, in The CNIO Biobank is managed by the National Node of the European Biobank Infrastructure (BBMRI-ERIC)., one of the largest infrastructures of its kind in the world. In particular, it brings together more than 700 biobanks that work in an integrated manner, facilitating the access of the international scientific community to clinical information and biological samples.
Usefulness of biobanks today
With the development of research technologies, the information that can be extracted from samples is becoming richer and more diverse. For example, now andIt is possible to know in detail the genes that are expressed in each tissue, protein or metabolite, and thus look for biomarkers. diagnose diseases before symptoms appear, predict their development in each patient, or even predict drug responses.
On the other hand, biobanks very useful for studying rare diseases. According to Ortega-Paino, “It’s not just about quality, it’s about quantity; biobanks, but also network infrastructures multiply the possibilities of accessing samples of very rare cases.”
It should be noted that although investigators do not have access to the identity of donors, biobank coding allows traceability of samples so that biological and clinical data can be supplemented if the project is needed. information with additional data of the person to whom it belongs, for example, lifestyle. Ortega-Paino emphasizes that the information extracted from these samples is infinite and that “the sample may run out, but the resulting information remains available to the scientific community and will continue to be useful for knowledge.”
Research areas
Several projects are currently underway with samples from the CNIO biobank. One of them is RENACER, the National Brain Metastasis Network., the world’s first collection of living specimens of human brain metastases. In just two years, donations from twenty hospitals have created a collection of specimens from more than 150 brain metastases, an important resource for basic and clinical research.
Also The CNIO Biobank plays a key role in the REACT (Respiratory Pathogen Host Interaction) project, which examines three diseases caused by viruses: Covid-19, the flu, and the RSV virus that causes bronchiolitis. The CNIO Biobank will create a cohort of people who have had one or more of these diseases to extract and preserve live T cells from samples.
On the other hand, this biobank also stores the samples needed for study the effects of chronic jet lag (i.e. jet lag) in cells of the immune system, with the help of the Spanish Association of Flight Attendants (AETCP).
