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The live cell samples are kept in liquid nitrogen tanks at -196°C. When they are removed, they have to be 'revived' before they can be used for research. Laura M. Lombardía/CNIO
Biobanks preserve for science tissues such as tumours, nails or blood, and substances such as faeces or saliva. They operate under strict ethical principles.
Without sample donations "it would be impossible to make progress in personalised medicine," says Eva Ortega, director of CNIO Biobank. "With biobanks, society is directly involved in research".
CNIO Biobank is in charge of the Spanish node of the European Biobank Infrastructure, which makes samples from 700 biobanks in 24 countries available to the scientific community, in addition to the International Agency for Research on Cancer.
“Behind every sample that patients donate to us there is a lot of hope; in return we must give them answers, the knowledge gained from the research that these samples make possible. This is how Eva Ortega-Paíno, from the Spanish National Cancer Research Centre (CNIO), sums up the role of biobanks, increasingly important infrastructures in the era of personalised medicine. Ortega directs CNIO Biobank, once the first bank to promote the tumour network in Spain, and which today is, for Spanish researchers, the gateway to one of the largest international biobank networks.
“Biobanks are the way in which society is directly involved in research, and with an increasingly leading role,” says Ortega. “Without the information we collect from the samples, it would be impossible to make progress in the early diagnosis of cancer and increasingly tailored treatments with fewer side effects.
Biobanks collect, store and manage all types of biological samples: solid tissues (tumours, hair, nails) or liquids (blood), and substances such as urine, faeces or saliva. They accompany them with clinical data. The material is processed according to high quality standards and strict regulations, with ethical principles based on patient consent.
57 biobanks in Spain
Today, CNIO Biobank houses more than 8,500 samples of lymphomas, gynaecological and digestive neoplasms, breast carcinomas, non-neoplastic cases and primary skin cultures. Overall, it has more than 36,000 tissue samples. It belongs to the National Platform of Biobanks and Biomodels of the Carlos III Health Institute (ISCIII), in which the area or “hub” of biobanks has 57 biobanks, coordinated by Eva Ortega.
CNIO Biobank is also in charge of the national node in the European Biobank Infrastructure (BBMRI-ERIC), one of the largest infrastructures of its kind in the world. BBMRI-ERIC brings together more than 700 biobanks that work in an integrated manner, facilitating access to clinical information and biological samples for the international scientific community.
For personalised medicine and research in rare diseases
The information extracted from samples is becoming richer and more varied as research technologies develop. For example, knowing in detail the genes that are expressed in each tissue, proteins or metabolites makes it possible to search for biomarkers to diagnose diseases before symptoms appear, to predict their development in each patient or to predict the response to drugs. Biobanks are also essential for rare disease research: “It’s about quality, but also quantity. Biobanks, especially networked infrastructures, multiply the possibilities of accessing samples from very rare cases,” says Ortega.
The sample may get exhausted, the information generated won’t
In addition, although researchers do not have access to the identity of donors, coding in biobanks allows for traceability of samples, so that sometimes, if the project requires it, it is possible to complement biological and clinical information with additional data such as lifestyle.
Picture 2: Solid samples are fixed in blocks of wax, paraffin, which are then cut into very thin slices with a microtome (pictured).
“The information extracted from the samples is infinite,” says Ortega. “The sample may be exhausted, but the information generated is available to the scientific community and will continue to be useful for producing knowledge”.
Research on brain metastasis; on the effects of jet-lag; and on viral infections
CNIO Biobank houses RENACER, the National Brain Metastasis Network, the world’s first collection of live human brain metastasis samples. In just two years, donations from around twenty hospitals have enabled the building of a collection of samples from more than 150 brain metastases, an essential resource for carrying out basic and clinical studies.
CNIO Biobank also houses samples needed to study the effects of chronic jet lag (the jet-lag) on immune system cells, with the help of the Spanish Association of Flight Attendants (AETCP).
Another of the international projects in which CNIO Biobank is key is REACT (Respiratory Host Pathogen Interaction), which investigates three diseases caused by viruses: Covid-19, influenza and the RSV virus, which causes bronchiolitis. CNIO Biobank will build cohorts of people who have had one or more of these diseases, to extract and preserve live T cells from the samples.