German Biobank Alliance

The Joint Biobank Munich (JBM) is an association of the biobanks of the Helmholtz Zentrum München (HMGU), the integrated biobank of the Ludwig-Maximilian University of Munich (LMU) and the integrated biobank of the Technical University of Munich (TUM). JBM collects tissue and blood from various disease areas based on a common database solution according to uniform high quality standards for sample collection and evaluation. Munich is a partner in all six German Centres for Health Research.

Biobanks of the Helmholtz Zentrum München (HMGU)

HMGU currently stores around one million biosamples from more than 50,000 individuals. The biobank’s focus lies on epidemiological studies and on collecting liquid biosamples such as serum, plasma, urine, saliva, as well as DNA and faeces. At the heart of the biobank is KORA (Cooperative Health Research in the Region of Augsburg), a population-based cohort that has been collecting biosamples for more than 30 years. The central biosample storage of the National Cohort Health Study (GNC) is also located at HGMU.

Integrated biobank of the Ludwig-Maximilian University of Munich (LMU)

The integrated biobank of LMU includes the LMU MedBiobank, the biobanks of the LMU Institute for Laboratory Medicine, the Medical Clinic 1 and the Lung Clinic. It focuses on the acquisition of tissue and serum from patients with neoplastic diseases and from carcinomas in the gastrointestinal tract. At present, 60,000 liquid samples are in storage, with access possible to more than 500,000 FFPE tissue samples.

 

Integrated biobank of the Technical University of Munich (TUM)

Biobanking at TUM focusses on the collection and characterisation of biosamples from tumour patients and patients with neurological, inflammatory, metabolic and cardiac diseases. The samples are collected from the Klinikum rechts der Isar (“hospital on the right of the river Isar”) and from the German Heart Centre Munich. On the one hand, broad collections of samples and clinical data from non-selected patients are created at TUM; on the other hand, the biobank offers services for project-related and disease-oriented collections.

 

Profile

Clinical Biobank, Tissue Biobank, Liquid Biobank, Population-based Biobank

Accreditation and/or certification

Integrated biobank of the LMU and Integrated Biobank of the TUM: accredited according to DIN EN ISO/IEC 17020, in collaboration with the Institute for Pathology.
HMGU: certificated according to DIN ISO 9001:2015

Key figures

Funding bodies and partners