Biobank as an Important Tool for Biomarker Discovery and Validation

Biomarker is a measurable indicator, such as protein, genetic alteration, or metabolite that found in tissue, blood, or other body fluids. Identification of biomarkers that specifically associated with the particular medical conditions such as cancer, cardiovascular disease and neurological disorder is useful for early detection, prevent, and therapy of the diseases. Availability of biomarkers for disease diagnosis, prognosis and prediction of response to therapy can advance personalized medicine and significantly improve clinical outcomes and enhance patient care. The biomarker pipeline consists of a series of phases: biomarker discovery, verification, and clinical validation, which require availability of high quality and well characterized patient samples [1,2]. Therefore, it is critical to have a large collection of patient samples with patient clinical, pathologic and outcome data for biomarker discovery and validation.