Biobank resources for future patient care: developments, principles and concepts

The development of gene and protein functional analysis has progressed substantially since the first draft of the human genome was announced a decade ago. These advancements are seen by the increasing number of clinical studies that have been undertaken, and the number of patient samples that have been processed, and investigated by proteomics/genomics-, and bioinformatics studies [1-3]. For example, a search of the term "biomarker" on the United States National Institutes of Health database of registered clinical trials returns 8298 hits http://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/results?term=biomarkers webcite. This considerable progress in medical science particularly linked to drug development and diagnostics has given us a unique milestone position, from where we have established the new beginning of an understanding of protein function in disease. An estimated $1bn has been invested in the biobanking industry within the last ten years. At least 179 biobanks with 345,000 donors exist in the US, most of which were established in the last 10 years (source: Business Insights, March 2009).The genetic link to disease has been very closely aligned to the bioinformatics disciplines and the building of databases and software search engines. This was recently exemplified by Venter in his groups first description of the idea of creating an artificial genome with specific functions [4]. This vision came from sequencing hundreds of marine microorganisms and forms the basis of a giant database containing protein-coding sequences from hundreds of microbial genomes therein http://www.jcvi.org/ webcite. These futuristic developments are expected to become a great value to mankind as we relate specific proteins to pathways associated with disease.Understanding the mechanisms by which specific protein functions contribute to disease pathogenesis is a great challenge. In comparison to the genomic map, the proteome map might be 100 times larger. Studies with model organisms such as Drosophila