Grant: Travel Awards - Institute Community Support

Biobanks have expanded to multiple areas of medical research. Population-based biobanks (PBB) are designed to link biomarkers with medical history and lifestyle information. Biobanks in primary care (PC) will support a better understanding from its users and service providers as well as the complexities associated with chronic diseases including multiple co-morbidities, spectrum of disease from symptom to mortality and the human life cycle. In this study, we evaluate the gap that PC based biobanks might fill by completing a narrative review to provide a comprehensive, critical and objective analysis of the current knowledge around PBB. The search returned 2067 articles cited in PubMed Central. A total of 630 articles were included in our study where we identified 136 biobanks in which 41 PBBs were identified. Three major biobanks identified with the most articles published in our series. The most comprehensive type of PPB, represented by these three biobanks, is designed to link biomarkers with medical history without any collection of prospective data at the PC level. All three biobanks have a follow-up that is based on electronic medical records (EMR) and national mortality registries. The collection of data and biospecimens are performed during specific routine visits with the participants. PBBs do not solve the challenge of cata and sample collection in a PC setting. Fundamental and usually complex questions should be the hallmark of PC research. We cannot rely on PBBs to cover the 99% gap between the general healthy population and the university teaching hospitals in the provision of healthcare services. Also, the misuse of biobanking terms can misrepresent PBBs and mislead researchers who seek population- based data from biobanks and not registries or prospective cohort studies. The biobanking community needs to scrutinize biobanks on the type of labels they associate their structures as the need of a PC biobank is now more evident.