Introduction Page

Biobanks are collections of biological materials which are annotated with corresponding data. Medical biobanks typically contain tissues, blood or body fluids collected in research projects, obtained from biopsies for routine diagnostic purposes, from organs surgically removed for treatment of diseases or materials collected at autopsy. Associated with relevant clinical data, they are essential resources for the establishment of the function and medical relevance of human genes (Hirtzlin et al., 2003; Hagen and Carlstedt-Duke, 2004; Cambon-Thomsen, 2004; Asslaber et al., 2007).

Particularly valuable information can be obtained from diseased human tissues, which preserve information on genetic and epigenetic alterations as well as modifications of gene products causing diseases or influencing their outcome. Because of the huge number of biological and medical parameters (e.g., type of disease, treatment, genetic polymorphisms, accompanying disease, life style, etc.) that influence and characterize the disease of individual patients, hundreds to thousands of samples have to be investigated to cope with the biological/medical diversity of humans. Such large tissue collections provide insight into the great variability of human disease manifestations and allow an estimation of the individual's response to medical treatment. Thus, they constitute an essential basis for the advancement of targeted and personalized medicine.

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NOTE: March 25th to 27th, 2009: Joint Conference in Brussels, Belgium See FORTHCOMING EVENTS for further details.

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