High-quality biobanking for personalized precision medicine: BioSpecimen Sciences at the helm

Optimal procurement and deep molecular (“omic”) characterization of human biospecimens are the key elements of success for developing truly personalized precision medicine of the future. We review key elements of developing and implementing a high-quality, cutting-edge BioSpecimen Sciences Program. Using our recently established academic programme as a specific example, we focus on quality of biospecimen practice covering topics including research consent of patients, logistics of ultra-rapid biobanking, computational and database aspects, quality control measures, proficiency testing, and optimal pathophysiome-preservation for data-rich omic interrogation of biospecimens. We emphasize that Pathology as the central medical speciality of personalized precision medicine will be the key driver for high-quality BioSpecimen Sciences in the modern healthcare setting.