Examples
Worked examples
- Is an instance
A university's biorepository holding patient-derived xenograft mouse models and matched tumour specimens.
- Is an instance
An agricultural biorepository holding seed lines from crop-genetics research programmes.
Counter-examples
Looks similar, but isn't
- Not an instance
A clinical-care pathology lab is not a research biorepository.
- Not an instance
An archive of published research papers is not a biorepository.
Editorial commentary
The terms biobank, biorepository, and sample repository are used interchangeably in many communities; in others, ‘biorepository’ carries a broader connotation including animal models, plant material, microbial cultures, and environmental samples, while ‘biobank’ is reserved for human-focused collections. ISBER (International Society for Biological and Environmental Repositories) maintains the most widely used best-practice document. Biorepositories typically issue accession numbers and, increasingly, IGSN-style PIDs for samples.
References
- ISBER, 'Best Practices for Repositories' (current edition).
ISBER Best Practices
ISBER (the International Society for Biological and Environmental Repositories) publishes the field’s most widely used best-practice document, covering specimen collection, processing, long-term storage and quality management, chain of custody, and cold-chain handling for both human and non-human biological material. Its recommendations are treated as the de facto operating standard by many institutional and commercial repositories, independent of ISBER accreditation itself.
Accessioning and persistent identifiers
Biorepositories typically assign an internal accession number to each specimen at intake, and an increasing number also mint external, globally resolvable persistent identifiers — most notably the IGSN (International Generic Sample Number), which functions for a physical sample much as a DOI functions for a publication or dataset, allowing a specimen to be cited and tracked independently of which repository or institution currently holds it.
References
- ISBER, ‘Best Practices for Repositories’ (current edition).
Machine-readable encodings
Use in your systems
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vocab-term="Biorepository"
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"datePublished": "2026-05-21T02:18:31",
"dateModified": "2026-08-23T06:25:17",
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}
