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}