Exigencies of biomarker research in the developing world: A focus on the dearth of biobanking resources

Abstract

The enormous burden of infectious as well as noninfectious diseases makes biomarker discovery-based research an imperative in the developing world. The extent of diversity and heterogeneity in the type of diseases that plague the low- and middle-income group nations often show a stark difference with the diseases that affect the developed countries. In order to enable global efforts to combat any given disease, it is important for researchers to have a large number of reliable biospecimens on which they could validate their fi ndings. Inappropriate representation of samples at primary stages of research has sometimes been attributed to researchers not being able to fi nd gold-standard biomarkers. To capture the disease heterogeneity in the subjects ranging from genetic and ethnic diversity to the underlying pathogenesis, it is important to create a resource which could facilitate the availability of biospecimens from a large cohort of subjects along with their clinical annotation, which can be studied by researchers for reliable biomarker discovery. Moreover, biorepositories are also necessary resources for facilitating validation-based studies following the discovery phase. This chapter summarizes the pressing need for well- planned and managed biorepositories as one of the primary steps to facilitate reliable biomarker discovery in the developing world.