Enabling Access and Cohort Construction for Biorepositories

? DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The first reference human genome sequence was completed in 2000 and published in early 2001. That landmark accomplishment was greeted with great enthusiasm about the possibility that a catalog of human genes couldrapidly yield insight into the molecular basis for human disease. However, it soon became clear that nearly every disease represented a complex phenotype and that unraveling the potential genetic causes would require the analysis of patient populations and the integration of clinical/phenotype information with genomic data if substantial progress were to be made. Recognizing the need for such data and for access to biospecimens, many of the institutes at the National Institutes of Health, including the National Institute on Drug Addiction (NIDA), publi and private hospitals, universities, healthcare organizations, private and public charities, and private companies began amassing biorepositories (or biobanks). Indeed, a 2012 study identified 636 biobanks i