Biorepositories store many different types of specimens, including samples of blood, urine, tissue, cells, DNA, RNA, and proteins.
The four main operations of a biorepository are; (i) collection (ii) processing, (iii) storage or inventory, and (iv) distribution of biological specimens.
There are a number of reasons why they are important: The OECD has issued best practice guidelines for biorepositories, which are referred to as biological resource centres.
They consist of service providers and repositories of the living cells, genomes of organisms, and information relating to heredity and the functions of biological systems.
BRCs contain collections of culturable organisms (e.g. micro-organisms, plant, animal and human cells), replicable parts of these (e.g. genomes, plasmids, viruses, cDNAs), viable but not yet culturable organisms, cells and tissues, as well as databases containing molecular, physiological and structural information relevant to these collections and related bioinformatics.