What is a Biorepository?

What is a Biorepository?

Professor Louise Jones is a research scientist and a pathologist and she combines these dual roles in her work with the Norwich Research Park Biorepository.  

As a pathologist her job is to handle tissue from patients, examine it and report her findings back to the clinical team.

As a researcher, Louise relies on human samples to understand how breast cancer progresses. Tissue samples donated by patients let her translate findings made in the lab to the clinical setting.

The role of the Norwich Research Park Biorepository is to obtain ethically samples from patients and volunteers, ensuring they give their full consent. It then safely and securely stores these samples. Researchers can then apply to use these samples in studies, as long as they have full ethical approval. The Biorepository supplies samples to approved researchers, along with anonymised patient data as appropriate. The role of Biorepository staff is to ensure that this process happens in a way that protects the donors’ privacy and data, whilst enabling high quality research.

Every single patient’s samples are incredibly valuable to the research community, the clinical community and ultimately to patients themselves.