The biobank is an infrastructure combining the main sample biobanks connected to the Hospital Clínic – IDIBAPS in Barcelona. It offers a wide assortment of human samples in various formats, depending on the relevant section:
Neurological Tissue Biobank
This biobank stores samples pertaining to an extensive range of neurological diseases, among which Alzheimer disease is the most widely represented. Other samples are available from patients suffering from Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, Parkinson disease, Lewy body-related dementia, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and Huntington’s disease, among others. The brain tissue and samples from this section of the biobank are stored at the University of Barcelona School of Medicine.
Tumour Biobank and Anatomical Pathologies Collections
The Tumour Biobank contains fragments of frozen tissue representing the most frequent human tumours (breast, prostate, lymphoma, digestive, larynx and other ENT, bladder, kidney, central nervous system, lung, ovarian, endometrial and thyroid), as well as other less common ones, organic liquids, tissue microarrays and paraffin-embedded tissue blocks.
The anatomical pathology paraffin-embedded samples include a wide variety of diseases ranging from gastrointestinal, urological, gynaecological and pulmonary tumours to inflammatory and infectious abnormal tissue masses.
Blood and Fluid Biobank
This biobank stores DNA samples for large-scale genomic research or other genetic analyses; serum and plasma samples that can be used in studies for establishing protein and metabolic profiles or for identifying new therapeutic targets; lymphocytes, which can be used for extracting RNA for gene expression studies, etc. The biobank also has samples from some of their projects, including erythrocytes, buffy coat, whole blood, amniotic fluid and cerebrospinal fluid.
