BIOBANK PROFILES
BIOPRESERVATION AND BIOBANKING Volume 9, Number 2, 2011 ª Mary Ann Liebert, Inc.
Shanghai Biobank Network (SBN) DOI: 10.1089/bio.2011.9211
Introduction
S
hanghai, the birthplace of China’s modern life sciences and one of the most important cities for biopharmaceutical industry in Asia, is reorganizing its resources management system for an improved infrastructure for innovation-based research and development (R&D) activities. Shanghai sits in the heart of the Yangtze River delta region, the richest part of China, surrounded by hundreds of towns and villages. In 2009, the population of Shanghai reached approximately 26 million, and the total number of patients that were served in over 300 public hospitals in the city was close to 173.6 million, with the number of surgeries performed in these hospitals reaching more than 800,000 annually. During the past 20 years, China’s urbanization process has brought a big change to this region economically and culturally. Along with changes in eating habits, chemical exposure, and other lifestyles of the people living in this region, the epidemic disease profile has been largely changed. A large-scale clinical sample storage containing biospecimens, together with adherent medical and science data, is highly needed for the life science research community—particularly for environmental genomics and epidemiology studies. From the early 1970s, Fudan University hospitals started to collect and preserve clinical specimens for in-house epidemiology studies, followed by more and more hospitals starting to build their own sample collections separately. However, the work has been sustained at a low level because of the poor research funding and deficient understanding to this work. Inappropriate storage of samples, lack of relevant medical data, inadequate communication and cooperation among hospitals, short staffing of professionals, and poor management have all prevented the further development of the work. The ‘‘biobank’’ concept was adopted in recent years. In 2008, the construction of the Shanghai Clinical Research Biobanking Center was granted by the Shanghai Municipal Science and Technology Commission, aiming at the establishment of a biobanking network through a number of leading biobanking players under a third-party coordination model. Shanghai Clinical Research Center (SCRC) was appointed as the third-party coordinator to work with eight university hospitals (allied units) in the initial stage to establish the prototype of the Shanghai Biobank Network (SBN). The network quickly expanded to 17 allied units under the further support of Shanghai Municipality in 2010. Shanghai Institutes for Biological Sciences (SIBS), the strongest research force in life sciences research in the China Academy of Sciences (CAS), also joined this network as a dominant research player. Centralized management—vs. a decentralized storage model—was accepted by SBN at this stage. A science committee, an ethics and law committee, and an executive
committee were created, and information management, quality administration, staff training, and research promotion will be centralized to SCRC. A biobanking information management system is under development. Shanghai municipality will inject RMB50 million ($7.7 million) annually into this project in the next 5 years, together with an equivalent injection from network members. Currently, over 100,000 biospecimens have been maintained in the network member hospitals, and another 100,000 biospecimens are expected in the next 2 years.
What are, in your view, the most valuable/high priority cases in your biobank network? Several priorities could be really highlighted in SBN. A large collection of liver cancer tissue has been achieved in one of SBN member hospitals, which was started in the early 1980s and contributed heavily to relevant clinical research for over 100 scientific papers. Another collection of rheumatism samples was fully dedicated to a nationwide research project named ‘‘Ankylosing spondylitis in Chinese Han population.’’ Dozens of domestic and international research institutes have been involved in this work. A large number of neonates’ samples have been well maintained within SBN, which includes maternal and infantile blood, hair, nail, and breast milk.
What are your major challenges? The major challenge of SBN is to implement a globally recognized management and technical operation standard within the network, given the fact that members are from different university administrative systems, and the research environment in many member hospitals are far below the demanding level.
What would you do with $1 million to improve the value of your biobank network?
133
We would certainly spend that money on staff training. Address correspondence to: Jinli Fan, Ph.D. Shanghai Clinical Research Center Building 10, No. 140 Tianlin Road Shanghai 200233 China E-mail: [email protected] Jiong Zhang, M.D., Ph.D. Shanghai Clinical Research Center Building 10, No. 140 Tianlin Road Shanghai 200233 China E-mail: [email protected]
BIOPRESERVATION AND BIOBANKING Volume 9, Number 2, 2011 ª Mary Ann Liebert, Inc.
Shanghai Biobank Network (SBN) DOI: 10.1089/bio.2011.9211
Introduction
S
hanghai, the birthplace of China’s modern life sciences and one of the most important cities for biopharmaceutical industry in Asia, is reorganizing its resources management system for an improved infrastructure for innovation-based research and development (R&D) activities. Shanghai sits in the heart of the Yangtze River delta region, the richest part of China, surrounded by hundreds of towns and villages. In 2009, the population of Shanghai reached approximately 26 million, and the total number of patients that were served in over 300 public hospitals in the city was close to 173.6 million, with the number of surgeries performed in these hospitals reaching more than 800,000 annually. During the past 20 years, China’s urbanization process has brought a big change to this region economically and culturally. Along with changes in eating habits, chemical exposure, and other lifestyles of the people living in this region, the epidemic disease profile has been largely changed. A large-scale clinical sample storage containing biospecimens, together with adherent medical and science data, is highly needed for the life science research community—particularly for environmental genomics and epidemiology studies. From the early 1970s, Fudan University hospitals started to collect and preserve clinical specimens for in-house epidemiology studies, followed by more and more hospitals starting to build their own sample collections separately. However, the work has been sustained at a low level because of the poor research funding and deficient understanding to this work. Inappropriate storage of samples, lack of relevant medical data, inadequate communication and cooperation among hospitals, short staffing of professionals, and poor management have all prevented the further development of the work. The ‘‘biobank’’ concept was adopted in recent years. In 2008, the construction of the Shanghai Clinical Research Biobanking Center was granted by the Shanghai Municipal Science and Technology Commission, aiming at the establishment of a biobanking network through a number of leading biobanking players under a third-party coordination model. Shanghai Clinical Research Center (SCRC) was appointed as the third-party coordinator to work with eight university hospitals (allied units) in the initial stage to establish the prototype of the Shanghai Biobank Network (SBN). The network quickly expanded to 17 allied units under the further support of Shanghai Municipality in 2010. Shanghai Institutes for Biological Sciences (SIBS), the strongest research force in life sciences research in the China Academy of Sciences (CAS), also joined this network as a dominant research player. Centralized management—vs. a decentralized storage model—was accepted by SBN at this stage. A science committee, an ethics and law committee, and an executive
committee were created, and information management, quality administration, staff training, and research promotion will be centralized to SCRC. A biobanking information management system is under development. Shanghai municipality will inject RMB50 million ($7.7 million) annually into this project in the next 5 years, together with an equivalent injection from network members. Currently, over 100,000 biospecimens have been maintained in the network member hospitals, and another 100,000 biospecimens are expected in the next 2 years.
What are, in your view, the most valuable/high priority cases in your biobank network? Several priorities could be really highlighted in SBN. A large collection of liver cancer tissue has been achieved in one of SBN member hospitals, which was started in the early 1980s and contributed heavily to relevant clinical research for over 100 scientific papers. Another collection of rheumatism samples was fully dedicated to a nationwide research project named ‘‘Ankylosing spondylitis in Chinese Han population.’’ Dozens of domestic and international research institutes have been involved in this work. A large number of neonates’ samples have been well maintained within SBN, which includes maternal and infantile blood, hair, nail, and breast milk.
What are your major challenges? The major challenge of SBN is to implement a globally recognized management and technical operation standard within the network, given the fact that members are from different university administrative systems, and the research environment in many member hospitals are far below the demanding level.
What would you do with $1 million to improve the value of your biobank network?
133
We would certainly spend that money on staff training. Address correspondence to: Jinli Fan, Ph.D. Shanghai Clinical Research Center Building 10, No. 140 Tianlin Road Shanghai 200233 China E-mail: [email protected] Jiong Zhang, M.D., Ph.D. Shanghai Clinical Research Center Building 10, No. 140 Tianlin Road Shanghai 200233 China E-mail: [email protected]
