The future of biobanks
You know that horror movie trope where you walk into a mad scientist’s lab, and it’s full of human specimens? Severed limbs, brains floating in jars, that sort of thing?
Turns out they actually exist. They’re called biobanks. Think of them as ‘human libraries’, which store research samples ranging from blood to bone marrow to brains.
With breakthroughs in technologies like big data, biobanks around the world are connecting online to create global research networks.
Sam King spoke to Dr Paul Mason, Research Fellow at the University of Sydney, to take a look at the future of these vital research tools.
Image: SLU Madrid Campus on Flickr.
