From the Editor’s Desk

A recent TIME magazine article listed biobanks as “one of 10 ideas changing the world right now.” This was an exciting announcement for many of us, as it suggested a brighter future in which biobanks would be better funded and better appreciated. In general, there is a growing awareness of the importance of biobanking, so there seems reason to be optimistic. Having said this, the statement that biobanks are an idea that is changing the world right now might give the impression that biobanks are something new. However, this is not the case. If you define a biobank as an organized collection of preserved biological samples, then biobanks have been around for centuries. Good examples include natural history museums and the sample collections of hospital pathology departments. Research laboratories have held collections of biological samples for many decades. So why is it that biobanks are, all of a sudden, changing the world? The answer is simple: advances in molecular and information technology. These advances are now empowering scientists to make much more productive use of biobanks and the samples they contain.

While biobanks may not be a new phenomenon, the development of an associated biobanking community certainly is. This is the community of individuals who recognize the need to share a wide range of expertise, whether technical, scientific, informatic, legal, or ethical, in order to run their biobanks to the increasingly high standards now expected by science and by society. Using the latest technology, scientists can extract vast amounts of molecular data from large numbers of biological samples, but this information is only reliable if those samples are collected in an organized manner and preserved according to standardized protocols. Society is increasingly vigilant about the potential abuses of genetic materials, and for this reason biobanking must now be much more carefully regulated. The biobanking community that has developed in order to share these challenges has been extended globally through the efforts of organizations like the International Society of Biological and Environmental Repositories (ISBER) and Public Population Project in Genomics (P3G). It includes individuals concerned with the collection of both human and nonhuman biological materials. More formal structures like the NCI OBBR (US National Cancer Institute Office of Biorepositories and Biospecimen Research) in North America, BBMRI (Biobanking and Biomolecular Resources Research Infrastructure) in Europe, and ANRRC (Asian Network for Research Resource Centers) in Asia have played, and are currently playing a major role in defining this community. Of course, information and communications technology, particularly e-mail and the web, have played a critical role in bringing this widely dispersed community into existence.

Through the efforts of the biobanking community, biobanking is emerging as a new discipline that includes elements from the biological sciences (biopreservation), from information sciences (databases and information management systems), and from the social sciences (legal and ethical issues). Some universities are now offering courses and even degrees in biobanking. One particularly important aspect of the biobanking discipline is biospecimen research, which aims to optimize biopreservation of samples for downstream use. A major objective of biospecimen research is to identify biomarkers that will indicate sample quality. Research in this neglected area may be pivotal to the introduction of personalized medical care, so this certainly merits serious attention.

It is now widely accepted within the biobanking community that the discipline of biobanking needs to have its own journal, to provide a forum for discussions that will help advance the field. The existence of such a specialist journal will also help ensure that submitted manuscripts undergo peer review by experts in the biobanking field. To meet the growing need for a specialist journal, the journal Cell Preservation Technology has been renamed Biopreservation and Biobanking. The journal scope has been widened to include all aspects of biobanking (including legal and ethical issues) and a number of distinguished experts have accepted invitations to join the editorial board and strengthen the journal in all the new subject areas that have been included.

The Editorial Board of Biopreservation and Biobanking is now strongly committed to ensuring that this journal serves the entire biobanking community and helps to advance the science of biobanking. Whether or not this initiative is a success will depend on whether members of the biobanking community are prepared to support their own journal by the submission of high quality manuscripts. With this support, the journal will grow in quality and impact and it will serve all of us better in the future. So please join us in helping to make Biopreservation and Biobanking the focal point and forum for the new discipline of biobanking.

—Robert Hewitt, Ph.D.

Associate Editor