Discussion

Development of clinical biobank

This study discusses the construction and development of biobank in research-oriented hospital from three aspects: doctors’ knowledge, utilization and demand of biobank. In the aspect of knowledge of hospital’s biobank, the overall awareness is good. But the awareness of sample warehousing process is low, less than a quarter of people know how to apply for sample warehousing. It shows that the hospital’s biobank needs to strengthen propaganda work in the early stage of construction and development. In particular, more efforts should be made to publicize the procedures of sample warehousing and sample delivery. In the aspect of utilization of the hospital’s biobank, there are still some problems need to be noticed. For example, only about a third of people thought the samples they collected so far were of good quality, and less than half of people would conduct regular quality monitoring on their own samples. Besides, the storage quantity of biological samples is relatively high, but the delivery quantity and delivery rate of biological samples is very low. Therefore, in the process of building biobank, the hospital’s administrators should pay more attention to the quality of collected samples, and the standardized management of various samples is crucial for accessing high-quality biospecimens11. Besides, sample quality monitoring should be carried out regularly. After all, the quality of samples directly reflects the level of the development of biobank. At the same time, it is also necessary to improve sample delivery quantity and sample delivery rate, and it is very important to increase the use of samples. According to the survey results, this study also found that researchers are faced with many challenges such as insufficient staff for sample collection, insufficient funds, insufficient related equipment, insufficient professional training experience of staff, delayed delivery of collected samples in the process of biological sample collection. In the aspect of demand for the hospital’s biobank, most people are willing to pay to store their samples in the hospital’s biobank, but their willingness to pay is low. It is probably because most researchers lack sufficient funds for sample storage, so most researchers are not willingness to pay much cost to store their samples in the hospital’s biobank.
Biobank is the solid basis of modern medical research, the foundation of the development of precision medicine, the source of translational medicine research12. The establishment of hospital level biobank is an important way to collect clinical samples of major diseases, which is of great significance13. However, the clinical biobank of the hospital still has deficiencies in workflow publicity, sample collection, sample transportation, sample storage, sample quality assurance and sample utilization. These problems are crucial and can not be ignored by the administrator of the biobank. Among these problems, sample utilization is particularly important, because sample utilization is one of the most important basic performance metrics of biobanks, and biobanks with low utilization rates can hardly achieve the goal of sustainable development14. So, these problems need to be continuously solved to improve the development level of the hospital’s biobank, so that it can fully play its role in supporting clinical research.

Development of clinical disciplines

In terms of survey participation, the overall participation rate of key disciplines is higher than that of non-key disciplines, which indicates that key disciplines are more enthusiastic about the construction of the hospital’s biobank.
In terms of knowledge of the hospital’s biobank, the result suggests that the knowledge of the hospital’s biobank in key disciplines is better than that in non-key disciplines. In terms of utilization of the hospital’s biobank, key disciplines have more people responsible for sample collection and processing than non-key disciplines. In addition, key disciplines do better than non-key disciplines in sample storage quantity, sample delivery quantity and sample delivery rate. Therefore, it can be concluded that key disciplines make better use of the hospital’s biobank than non-key disciplines. In terms of demand for the hospital’s biobank, the willingness to store samples and the willingness to pay for sample storage of key disciplines are stronger than that of non-key disciplines. So, it is obvious that key disciplines have higher demand for the hospital’s biobank than non-key disciplines. On the whole, the knowledge, utilization and demand on biobank of key disciplines are better than those of non-key disciplines. This may be related to the fact that key disciplines have abundant clinical biological sample resources and pay more attention to the construction of the hospital’s biobank.
In the aspect of discipline development, the number of NSFC applications per capita, the approval rate of NSFC and the number of English articles per capita in key disciplines are all higher than those in non-key disciplines. These results strongly illustrate that the scientific research and academic strength of key disciplines is stronger than that of non-key disciplines.
In summary, the construction and development of key disciplines is better than that of non-key disciplines. And key disciplines are the most important force in the construction and development of the hospital’s biobank.

The relationship of clinical biobank and clinical disciplines

As an important platform for clinical research, biobank can provide a large number of rich and valuable biological sample resources for clinical research, thus providing important basic conditions for disease etiology exploration, precise prevention, early diagnosis and personalized treatment. Therefore, biobank is an important resource for discipline development.15 At the same time, discipline is also very important for the development of biobank. In particular, key disciplines play a critical role in the construction and development of biobank. If the clinical discipline of the hospital is well constructed, it will pay more attention to biological samples and have a higher demand for biological samples and biobank, which will be beneficial to promote the development of the hospital’s biobank. When the clinical biobank has been well developed, it will become a very important resource for the development of clinical disciplines. So, this is a very good virtuous circle in the development of clinical biobank and clinical disciplines. In summary, the development of clinical biobank is closely related to the development of clinical disciplines.
Clinical biobank plays a critical role in the process of clinical discipline construction and development. Therefore, it can be a new breakthrough in the development of clinical disciplines. For key disciplines, they should continue to maintain their advantages in biological samples, make use of abundant biological sample resources, strengthen the research capacity of precision medicine and translational medicine, improve research efficiency, and continue to produce relevant research results, so as to promote the development of the disciplines to a higher level. For non-key disciplines, in order to achieve better development, discipline leaders should firstly call on medical and scientific professionals to pay more attention to the construction of clinical biobank. At the same time, it is critical to increase investment, and increase the collection and storage quantity of biological samples as much as possible. In addition, it is also important to strengthen the utilization of biological samples. Biological samples that have been stored in the biobank should be used in time to avoid making the biobank become a ”waste biobank”. The biobank will be an efficient biobank when most of its collected biospecimens are distributed to investigators, and the rapid distribution and use of biosamples can ensures that the intentions of the specimen donors have been honored16. If the non-key disciplines can improve the utilization rate of biological samples and give full play to the role of biological samples, it will be developed and improved, and the gap between key disciplines and non-key disciplines will be continuously narrowed. So non-key disciplines can catch up with and even surpass key disciplines by using clinical biobank.
In conclusion, clinical biobank is an important booster for the development of clinical disciplines. Clinical disciplines can take the clinical biobank as a new breakthrough for development, and make full use of the power of the clinical biobank to strive for the goal of building a world-class discipline.{!!! INVALID CITATION !!! , #0;Chen, 2011 #63}