Biobanks collect biological samples, including but not limited to tissue and blood samples, and connected data in a pseudonymized manner. In the age of personalized medicine, there is a high need of novel specifc and effective new therapies. For the development of such new treatments, a better understanding of the molecular defects responsible for a disease is needed. In order to elucidate these molecular alterations, one of the most important sources for research are tissue samples handled by a biobank. For an effective and long lasting perspective, biobanks are important prerequisites for successful biomedical research.

Since 1989 unfixed tissue samples from tumor specimens and corresponding non-tumourous tissues are systematically collected, frozen in liquid nitrogen (N2), stored at the Institute of Pathology at the Technical University of Munich, and made available for biomedical research. The close interaction between the routine pathology lab and the tissue bank is key in this workflow. Currently, about 28.000 samples from about 18.000 patients are stored in our tissue bank, from which about 15.000 samples are malignant tumor tissues and about 13.000 samples are non-neoplastic tissues or benign samples. The tissue bank, termed MTBIO, is member of the Joint Biobank Munich.