2018 Volume 67 Issue 1 Pages 84-89
A biobank is an organization that collects human biomaterials and their related clinical information for future medical research. In recent years, the number of biobanks has been increasing worldwide. Various biomaterials are collected according to the specific purpose of each institution. In September 2013, we launched the Cancer Biobank (CBB) Project and started to collect biomaterials from cancer patients who visit the Kyoto University Cancer Center. Through the hospital biobank, we collected detailed clinical data from each patient in a longitudinal manner using electronic medical charts and recorded them in our original prospective cohort database. Initially, CBB started with two departments, but now ten departments have joined CBB. In April 2015, we introduced clinical sequencing using multiplex cancer-gene assay (OncoPrimeTM) based on infrastructure of CBB. CBB is managed by six members: one coordinator who assists patients in providing informed consent and is responsible for ordering blood samples at the designated time point, two members who collect and process biomaterials and anonymize them in a linkable manner, one member who retrieves clinical information using electronic medical charts, and two members who are in charge of clinical sequencing. Here, we report the history and current status of our CBB Project.
