Introduction

According to the definition of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) in 2001, the biobank is a biological application system for the clinical treatment of diseases and the research of life sciences, in which all kinds of human biological materials are stored intensively.1 The purpose of biobank is to collect biological information of specific population, and then to use these biological information to carry out medical scientific researches2. There is no doubt that biobanks play a very important role in medical scientific researches.
Biobanks have developed rapidly in recent years, and many countries have established their own biobanks. The large-scale and famous biobanks in the world mainly include UK Biobank, Danish National Biobank, Biobanks of the Biobanking and BioMolecular Resources Research In frastructure-European Research Infrastructure Consortium (BBMRI-ERIC), and China Kadoorie Biobank3-6. At the same time, there are more and more researches on biobank7,8. Biobanking research has become commonplace even in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs)9. China has established a national biobank since 1994. Since then, the construction of biobank has been booming in China. There are more and more biobanks in China, and some large-scale biobanks which is established by national clinical research centers appears. However, there are still many problems in the development of biobanks in China, such as small scale, few samples of healthy people, insufficient utilization, unshareable resources, backward information construction, and lack of relevant standards and operational specifications.
In this study, we will focus on a clinical biobank of a research-oriented hospital in China. In research-oriented hospital, clinical research is as important as clinical diagnosis and treatment, and clinical research is one of the most important tasks in the development of clinical disciplines. So, as an important platform and resource of clinical research, clinical biobank may play an important role in the development of clinical disciplines10. In the meantime, clinical disciplines may also play a key role in the development of clinical biobank. However, there is no research on the relationship of clinical biobank and clinical disciplines. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to understand the differences between different clinical disciplines in the development of clinical biobank, and to explore the relationship of clinical biobank and clinical disciplines.