Storage, archiving and retrieval of bacteria and fungi: overview and update

Biobanking in general terms describes the practice of storing material of a biological origin safely over short or long periods of time. It offers a resource for research, analysis, epidemiological and statistical analysis, and education from large and diverse population sources in numerous scientific applications in many areas and disciplines of science. Samples can be used for individual reference and study or by multiple international groups where access is granted. The term is used in various ways and a simple approach is to define it as a collection of organised samples of human, plant, animal or microbial biological materials accompanied by associated information stored for one or more research purposes.

Since the 1990s, biobanks have become an important resource in medical research, supporting new approaches such as genomics and personalised medicine. Millions of biological samples, including cells of human, animal or bacterial origin, viruses, serum/plasma or DNA/RNA, are now stored every year around the world for diagnostics and research. In 2002 the expansion and importance of biobanking was recognised by the Medical Research Council (MRC), the Wellcome Trust and the Department of Health, leading to support and comment from the then Prime Minister.

One clear example is for disease research associated with single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) and being able to perform genome-wide association studies using large collections of samples that represent tens or hundreds of thousands of individuals. This can help to identify disease biomarkers, and has led to many important findings in clinical research. Prior to the advent of biobanks, researchers may have struggled to acquire sufficient samples to carry out this important research.