An electronic future for biology?

Future medical research will focus increasingly on electronic data, with less need both for laboratory animals and tissue samples

Scientists say that the best way to deal with the challenges posed by the growing scale and complexity of life science research is to rely on ‘electronic specimens’.

At a recent conference organised by the European Science Foundation to explore the future of biological samples, a strong theme emerged - samples held in biobanks will best serve scientific need if they are converted into data - in effect providing researchers with the results they needed. This would reduce the need for expensive laboratory processes and expertise, although experts warn that creating electronic biobanks will involve a large coordinated effort and take time.

Speaking at the conference, Alberto Orfao of the The University of Salamanca in Spain, said: “A challenge for the future will be to provide access to enough data and information about large series of individuals so that further research could be linked to data stored in electronic resources,” said Orfao. “However, this is still far from current practice, and it is still crucial that specimens be stored to facilitate the generation of additional data.”

In the more immediate future biological specimens will be required in ever greater quantities, with higher quality, for a wide variety of experiments - and the biobanks that serve this need will have to be adaptable and accessible.

Orfao said: “Different types of biobank will probably coexist, including both generic and smaller ones, depending on the specific purpose, the type of samples or collections hosted, and many other factors.”

Biobanks - repositories of biological samples created over the last decade - therefore have to serve a wide variety of requirements, and yet conform to common standards so that researchers can obtain the samples they need readily. Before any moves to ‘electronic specimens’, the biobank community faces a daunting enough challenge just providing sufficiently diverse and large specimen sample collections to feed current research as well as provide the raw material for creation of the electronic biobanks of the future.

“Current research projects studying human diversity and evolution, as well as the genetic/genomic factors underlying complex, multi-factorial human diseases, require the availability and use of thousands of biological samples, together with associated epidemiological, genealogical, lifestyle and/or clinical data,” said Orfao. “Biobanks have been created with the aim of providing scientists with large collections of high quality biological samples.”

This is an aim that is under constant demand, but as the move to ‘electronic specimens’ begins, most experts agree that access and harmonisation is key.
“One of the challenges of biobanking is the need to stimulate coordinated activity in the field across Europe,” said Orfao. “What seems to be clear is the need for different existing biobanks to work under harmonised frames and guidelines at the international level, so that sharing and collaboration are facilitated and fostered.”