What are biospecimens & biorepositories?
Biospecimens are biologically-derived materials — such as tissue, blood, urine — used for diagnosis and analysis. When cancer patients undergo procedures such as biopsies or surgery in which malignant tissue is removed for diagnostic or therapeutic purposes, it is often possible for a small amount of the excised specimen to be stored and later used for research. Many patients have given consent for their biospecimens to be applied to research, in the hope that the resulting knowledge might help other patients in future years.
Biospecimens are stored in “libraries” known as biobanks or biorepositories. There are thousands of biorepositories in the United States, which vary widely in their size, nature of biospecimen collections, and purpose.
