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Integrating biomedical and clinical data with BioBank Japan

Nature Cardiovascular Research volume 1, pages 597–598 (2022)Cite this article

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Disease susceptibility and responsiveness to treatment vary among individuals. To understand this diversity, it is crucial to investigate clinical materials and information from large sets of individuals, such as data that can be obtained from biobanks. BioBank Japan is one of the largest biobanks in East Asia and has a complementary role to biobanks from other populations, such as the UK Biobank, given the presence of diverse ethnic variations.

As we understand empirically from the variations in height, weight, character and appearance between individuals, humans are diverse in every aspect. From a clinical point of view, people diagnosed with the same disease do not respond identically to the same therapy. This discrepancy arises because all diseases involve both genetic and environmental backgrounds, each comprising many factors. The effect size of each factor varies for common diseases. Indeed, a single factor alone does not directly determine disease pathogenesis or clinical parameters such as morbidity, treatment response or prognosis. To comprehensively understand this diversity among humans requires the analysis of a large repository of clinical materials, along with clinical information including clinical laboratory data. Only a large-scale biobank can offer such a set of specimens and data.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. BioResource Research Centre, Tokyo Medical and Dental University (TMDU), Tokyo, Japan

    Toshihiro Tanaka, Yuki Nagata & Akira Takemoto

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  1. Toshihiro Tanaka
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  2. Yuki Nagata
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  3. Akira Takemoto
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Correspondence to Toshihiro Tanaka.

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The authors declare no competing interests.

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Tanaka, T., Nagata, Y. & Takemoto, A. Integrating biomedical and clinical data with BioBank Japan. Nat Cardiovasc Res 1, 597–598 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s44161-022-00105-w

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s44161-022-00105-w

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