How to Use BioBank Japan's
Samples and Data

To Patients Who Have Cooperated with our Project

About BioBank Japan

In 2003, BioBank Japan (BBJ) started developing one of the world’s largest disease biobanks, creating a foundation for research aimed at achieving medical care tailored to the individual traits of each patient. From a total of 260,000 patients representing 440,000 cases of 51 primarily multifactorial (common) diseases, BBJ has collected DNA, serum, medical records (clinical information), etc. with their consent. No less than 5,800 items of screened information are available for research, including the patients’ survival information, with 95% of the patients tracked over an average of 10 years. In addition to large-scale genomic analyses, omics analyses including whole genome sequencing and metabolome/proteome analyses have been performed on the DNA, serum and other biological samples collected, producing significant research findings. The genomic information acquired through the analyses continues to be used as data. The biological samples and data are widely distributed and used by researchers.

From April 2003 to February 2008, BBJ collected DNA, serum and clinical information from more than 201,800 patients with their consent for 47 target diseases as the first cohort, with support from 12 medical institutions (66 hospitals). In July 2011, BBJ started tracking the registered patients to update the database and accumulate interannual data regarding their clinical information and serum. Furthermore, in April 2013, BBJ started collecting DNA and clinical information for its second cohort from some 66,000 new patients, targeting 38 diseases with the cooperation of 12 medical institutions (52 hospitals), completing the collection in August 2017. In addition, in 2015 BBJ started collaborating with clinical research bodies for cancer and other diseases in Japan, and established a new tissue bank.

Since 2018, BBJ has been operated and managed as a biobank project aimed at promoting the utilization of the registered samples and data acquired over the years for genomic and clinical research.

More than 500 papers based on BBJ’s samples and information have been published in international scientific journals as of the end of March 2020, presenting research findings concerning, for example, the association between genetic information of Japanese individuals and the onset of various diseases. Discoveries have been reported of genes related to diseases and drugs as well as physical traits and biomarkers. Such findings are anticipated to be shared and utilized by researchers around the world, contributing to the realization of genomic medicine.

BBJ has hosted facility tours for government officials, members of research and educational institutions, private corporations, patient groups, students and many more, both from within Japan as well as from over 20 countries around the world.