Biomedical Journal (Aug 2020)

Rapid establishment of a COVID-19 biobank in NHRI by National Biobank Consortium of Taiwan

  • Shiu-Feng Huang,
  • Yhu-Chering Huang,
  • Feng-Yee Chang,
  • Jung-Chung Lin,
  • Chun-Hsiang Chiu,
  • Chien-Wen Chen,
  • Fu-Der Wang,
  • Yen-Ling Chiu,
  • Shu-Hsing Cheng,
  • Chien-Yu Cheng,
  • Yi-Chun Lin,
  • Cheng-Pin Chen,
  • Chien-Hsien Huang,
  • Po-Yu Liu,
  • Yuan-Ti Lee,
  • Chen-Hsiang Lee,
  • Yao-Shen Chen,
  • Cheng-Len Sy,
  • Yu-Ting Tseng,
  • Cheng-Ting Hsu,
  • Chia-Chun Tseng,
  • Yu-Lin Lee,
  • Chun-Eng Liu,
  • Huey-Kang Sytwu

Journal volume & issue
Vol. 43, no. 4
pp. 314 – 317

Abstract

Read online

By the request of the Minister of Health and Welfare, NHRI Biobank was assigned to establish a COVID-19 biobank in early Feb, 2020 to collect COVID-19 patients’ blood samples for Taiwan researchers and industries in an emergent way. It was set up in less than 3 weeks and quickly opened for application. By August 5, 2020, this COVID-19 biobank has collected 165 blood samples of 110 patients from more than 10 hospitals across north, middle and south part of Taiwan, including both COVID-19 (+) and (-) pneumonia patients. This biobank can provide applicants with biosamples, such as serum, DNA and RNA, and also the clinical and genomic data, so as to accelerate the COVID-19 treatment and prevention research in Taiwan. This COID-19 biobank already received 15 applications. It has become the most important research resource for the COVID-19 pandemic in Taiwan, including new screening reagents, disease mechanism, the variable human responses and epidemic preventions. Since it is publicly available for both academic and industrial applicants.

Keywords