[Cohorts and Biobanks as Essential Resources for Cancer Research]

Human samples and health/clinical information are essential resources for both basic cancer research and cancer genomic medicine which stratifies subgroups of tumors and develops effective approaches to prevention, diagnosis and treatment of each cancer. For this purpose, a variety of population-based and disease-oriented cohort/biobanks are established as research platforms with a large number of cases with health/clinical record and biomaterials, including DNA, plasma/serum and tissue samples of high quality. In Japan, Tohoku Medical Megabank organization(ToMMo)and Japan Multi-Institutional Collaborative Cohort(J-MICC)are representative population-based cohorts, whereas Biobank Japan(BBJ)and National Center Biobank Network(NCBN)are major disease-oriented biobanks. Additional biobanks for rare cancers or childhood tumors have also been established and operated in these years. Cross-search programs for samples and information from the network of these Japanese biobanks has been established and being utilized for providing valuable information to researchers involved in basic sciences and cancer genomic medicine.