Biobanks in Germany

There are several biobank projects across Germany. Here, we give an overview of the largest of these.

South Germany: KORAgen (http://epi.gsf.de/kora-gen/)

The KORAgen biobank was developed within the framework of the KORA program (Cooperative Health Research in the Augsburg Region in South Germany) at the end of the 90's. The aim of the biobank was to look for genetic markers for heart diseases. It is coordinated by the GSF Research Center for Environment and Health and, in the meantime, has built up a bank of genetic material from 18,000 donors, which is now being used in scientific research. The biobank is based on four cross-section studies, made up in each case of 4,000 to 5,000 participants aged between 25 and 74, all from the Augsburg region. Since 2001, KORA, more specifically the KORA database, has been used for more than 50 cooperative research projects. The strength of the data lies in the fact that in the most part, only persons with illnesses that had just been diagnosed were used as donors. Researchers use the biobank above all to investigate the genetic causes of cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, throat illnesses, allergies and skin diseases. In the spring of 2006, significant developments were made by the project in the understanding of the genetic links to obesity. In a study, it turned out that people with a specific gene variant are frequently more overweight than those without the gene variant.

Northern Germany: Popgen (www.popgen.de)

In the Northern Federal State Schleswig-Holstein, in 2002, the University of Kiel initiated the Popgen (population genetics) project, the aim being to collect genetic material from patients between 18 and 80 years old, from the northern parts of Schleswig-Holstein. 1,700 medical practices and 41 local hospitals are involved in the project. The scientists hope to gather information about a multitude of influences which cause diseases, such as cardiac arrest or gallstones, and will look at the relationship between environmental influences and genetic background. Included in the sample collection will be both seriously ill patients as well as less seriously ill and healthy individuals. With samples being taken in this way, the results can be placed in a broader context. Initially, only patients who had suffered cardiac arrest were requested to participate. Now there are a total of eight diseases within the project's scope. So far 26,000 DNA samples have been collected, 3,600 from ‘controls’ and 1,400 from patients with coronary heart disease.

Danubian Biobank Consortium (www.danubianbiobank.de)

The Danubian Biobank Consortium is coordinated from Regensburg (together with BayGene).  Since 2004, a number of universities along the Danube river, between Ulm and Budapest, have come together to unite their biobank capacities and to develop a virtual network which is dedicated to researching age-related diseases. At the center of attention are heart and metabolic diseases, as well as neurodegenerative illnesses. Together, the consortium has already collected 160,000 blood samples, although not all of them have been suitable for research purposes.

New: Blood Donor Biobank

Previous large-scale biobank projects have always depended on the participants’ genetic material, which was then used to search for genetic markers. A biobank made up of blood samples, however, has made it possible to analyze proteins and metabolites manufactured by the body, which provides a more direct view of the individual’s actual state of health. If serial samples from a donor, taken at different times, are available, it is then possible to conduct progression studies. For example, if a donor falls victim to a disease, scientists can then search for protein patterns and compare them to those from before or after the illness and find clues on the protein level to predict the outbreak of an illness, before it’s too late. 

The Blood Bank service (BSD), run by the Bavarian red cross (BRK) wants to support the development of new, preventive diagnostic methods and, to this end, founded a ‘new business fields’ specialized division five years ago - under the direction of Stephan Rapp who was moving at that time from the Munich division of the US pharma giant Wyeth to the blood bank service. "Back then I was working on a project, in which such samples were being used, although we didn’t know where to get hold of them", explained Rapp in the transkript biotechnology news magazine. Since that time, under Rapp’s leadership, the first pilot projects have been developed, together with five, mostly locally resident industrial and academic partners, who, for the first time, are using deferred samples from the BSD for research purposes. Among these projects, for example, is a working group led by Friedrich Lottspeich at the Max Planck Institute for Biochemistry in Martinsried, who is searching for colon cancer biomarkers, which can help to identify the disease before an outbreak.

Altogether, the BSD in Bavaria has about 400,000 active blood donors on its books, of which, on average, about 255,000 donate samples twice yearly. Over the past five years, approximately 3 million plasma samples have been archived at minus 42 degrees Celsius in a high-tech blood bank, containing 5000 cubic meters of storage in Wiesentheid. However, these archives cannot be used straightforwardly for biomedical research, as the samples are earmarked for specific purposes - for example, to undertake subsequent investigations, if the donor falls victim to an infection or disease following a transfusion. Sample archiving is thereby part of the blood service’ infrastructure and, together with research establishments and commissioners for data protection and confidentiality, Rapp has compiled a concept of how these archives can be used for biomedical research. The blood donor biobank orients itself to the use of data as defined by the German Telematics Platform for Medical Research Establishments and can also fall back on the experience of the GSF Research Center for the Environment and Health and their KORAgen project.

As the blood bank service announced in July this year, by mid 2007, samples from 5000 ill donors and 5000 healthy blood donors (part of a total of around 100,000 samples) are intended to be collected by the blood donor biobank of the BSD. Of greatest interest are individuals with diseases such as diabetes, cancer or cardiovascular diseases. The BSD asks its blood donors to participate in the project and to give their agreement for the use of their samples for biomarker research (more information can be found at biobank@blutspendedienst.com, Tel: 0800/1194911). The archives that result from this initiative will then be made available, for a fee, to both private companies and research establishments. As the BSD is a not-for-profit corporation, the fees are not expected to be high. After the first year's operating phase, a long-term decision will then be made as to whether to collect the samples of a further 100,000 healthy donors – followed by continuous repeat donations from the same donors. If this is achieved, the biobank will eventually house an impressive 1 million samples in all.

If the Bavarian blood donor biobank project is successful, the Germans will have set an international standard. There is already significant interest being shown by other large blood banks from the German Red Cross who want to take part in the Bavarian BSD biobank project. "The fully automated refrigerated blood bank in Wiesentheid is one of its kind for plasma sample storage. These prerequisites have yet to be created in any other similar facility", thinks Rapp. All that remains to be finalized is the financing.