editorial: biobanking in the developing world; maximum specimens, minimum infrastructure

Biobanking is a rapidly expanding, yet fragile, enterprise, which has become crucial for the advancement of biomedical research. to encourage best practices in establishment, maintenance and expansion of biologic repositories, the office of biorepositories and biospecimen research at the national cancer institute (nci, usa) has issued guidelines, which if implemented will result in higher consistency and better quality of research by creating a set-up promoting reliable sample and data pooling among international consortiums. the guidelines provide best practices for sample collection, processing and storage, informatics, quality assurance and management. they also comment on controversial and sensitive ethical, legal and social issues concerning biobanking, including informed consent and privacy protection.