Annual Report 2021
Department of Biobank and Tissue Resources
Yasushi Yatabe, Nobuyoshi Hiraoka, Hiromi Sakamoto, Kohya Shiraishi, Masumi Tanaka, Izumi Hayama, Shinsuke Shinoda, Takako Sakamoto, Kazuki Ishikawa, Yuma Kai, Seika Nabeshima, Ayumi Iwanishi, Kahoko Akimoto
Introduction
Since 2002, the NCC Biobank has been working to build and operate a biobank with a catalog database containing high-quality, standardized clinical and pathological information.
The Team and What We Do
The status of collection of blood and tissue samples for the past three years is summarized in Table 1.
The lower number of samples collected in FY2020 was due to the suspension of blood and tissue collection services from April 14, 2020, following the spread of COVID-19 and the declaration of a state of emergency by the government. Particularly, outpatient clinics for new patients were suspended from March 31 to April 14, 2020 due to nosocomial infections. Specimen collection dropped significantly in April and May, but recovered to the same level as January 2020 in September. The monthly status for sample collection is shown in Figure 1.
Figure 1. Numbers for monthly sample collection (Plasma and
tissue)
Table 1. Status of sample collection for the past three
years
Research activities
The total number of articles published in FY2021 on research using biobank samples was high, with 101 papers and a total impact factor of 869 (average 8.6, highest 91.25), suggesting that biobanks have contributed sufficiently to the promotion of bridging research so far. The results show that the biobank has contributed sufficiently to promoting translational research (Table 2).
Table 2. Contribution to publishing articles using NCC Biobank
samples
Education
We accepted visits and interviews from biobank staff and practitioners from other institutions. In addition, we were actively involved in the management of the National Center Biobank Network (NCBN), and cooperated with Tohoku Megabank and BBJ to build a cross-sectional search system.
Future Prospects
Several issues have been identified in promoting the collection of materials that meet research needs and the provision of samples that combine clinical information. The accuracy and consistency of the catalog database is being confirmed, and the bank is being operated in a way that is easy for users to use.