[Liquid nitrogen biobank: a resource for biomedical research]

Biobanks are a critical resource for "omics" technologies in order to dissect molecular mechanism and gene-environmental interactions of common diseases, such as cancer, cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, and neurodegenerative diseases. Progress in basic biomedicine may contribute to advance personalised medicine in which treatments will no longer be "one size fits all", but instead "tailored" to the molecular and genetic profile of each patient. Currently, there are major efforts worldwide to professionalize biobanks in order to move ahead from a "do-it-yourself" tissue collection - as is most frequent at present - for providing high quality preservation and storage of biological samples with potentially greater scientific impact. In this paper, we describe our recent experience in the design and development of a high-security liquid nitrogen storage system (-196°C) as a key resource for biomedical research.