The Empty Biobank: Five Best Practices for Next-Gen Specimen Procurement

By Inga Rose, Founder and CEO and Zoran Gatalica, MD, Medical Director

In a conference room several years ago, we heard a statement that truly resonated with us: “The best biobank is an empty biobank.” It was a striking concept, especially in a field that has traditionally valued massive volume over meaningful inventory. But that simple statement changed our thinking about how we procure and provide specimens, and how we wanted to do things differently at Reference Medicine. It pushed us to reflect on how specimen procurement has evolved—or in many ways, how it hasn’t.

The Traditional Biobank Model is Outdated

For years, the industry has operated with the mindset of gathering as many samples as possible and storing them for as long as possible. Unfortunately, this practice has led to an accumulation of samples that, in many cases, are either unusable or undesirable in today’s research landscape. Whether due to improper storage, outdated collection methods, changes in requirements from regulatory bodies, or changes in research needs, these samples often collect dust instead of advancing science.

Biobanks that hoard samples for 10, 20, or even 30 years are not only risking sample degradation, but also squandering resources. For the biobank, it’s a significant financial burden — storage, maintenance, and staffing costs add up over time. What a waste!

What You Order vs. What You Get: The Specimen Disconnect

In the digital age, many of us have seen memes about the gap between expectations and reality—the clothes you ordered online versus what arrived in the mail. 

The same holds true in the world of oncology science. As researchers, we’ve all encountered samples that were unusable for various reasons: they were too old, formatted in a way that we couldn’t use, improperly stored, or simply not what was expected. In the fast-paced world of research, when you're trying to get your answers as quickly as possible to move innovation forward and make a difference for patients, the risk of bad samples weighs heavily on researchers’ minds and can significantly impact progress toward the finish line. 

In one recent example, a customer ordered samples from a variety of different suppliers, including Reference Medicine. The samples were put through the same workflow to extract cell-free DNA. The samples from one supplier? Useless. The quality just wasn’t viable. Our samples, however, performed exceptionally well. Why? Because we take the "empty biobank" approach seriously, focusing on procuring and providing only high-quality, fresh specimens tailored to current research needs and intentionally curated.

To that end, here are five ways that we put the “empty biobank” approach into practice.

1. Intentional Procurement

Reference Medicine was founded by scientists, for scientists, and that expertise means we do things a little differently. Rather than collecting specimens indiscriminately, we practice intentional procurement. We tightly regulate what types of specimens we're collecting at any given time to make sure we're not over collecting.  We talk to our customers and colleagues to discover the true implications and intentions of their research projects. We keep an ear to the ground and an eye on research trends and market demands. We only gather the types of specimens we know the research community needs right now. 

It’s akin to managing your supply chain. You wouldn’t order 2,000 pairs of gloves if your team only uses 10 pairs a week, or order latex gloves if half the team has a latex allergy, would you? The same logic applies here. We don’t want to stockpile specimens that labs can’t or won’t use. We want to get usable specimens that meet our customers’ needs right now and deliver them quickly.

2. Quality Control: Beyond Storage, It’s About Collection

It’s a misconception that long-term storage is the primary concern when it comes to specimen quality. The collection process is just as important as (if not more important than) the storage process for assuring quality. Samples that were collected ten years ago were likely obtained using outdated protocols and could be a risk to the integrity of the research project, regardless of how well they are stored. 

At Reference Medicine, we emphasize standardized collection methods to ensure that the samples we gather are of the highest possible quality from the outset. We ensure that our samples are ethically sourced, that we know exactly where they came from, and that collections and transport protocols are followed. We have implemented and are continually optimizing our quality control processes to test the integrity of the samples we obtain before we send them to customers, ensuring that every specimen we provide can be used effectively for the intended purpose. If we have to store samples for an extended period of time, we will periodically test the stored samples for quality (e.g. DNA integrity).

3. Matching Specimens to Their Intended Use

Researchers often design experiments with specific use cases in mind, such as diagnostic or predictive assays that need a certain type of sample. We talk with our customers to identify from the outset what they need, and if we don’t have that in our inventory, we set out to find it within our network of suppliers. Our scientific and industry experience means we know how to speak the language and communicate our customers’ needs to suppliers effectively to get them what they need, when they need it.

4. Creativity in Specimen Use: Turning “Unusable” Samples into Opportunities

We pride ourselves on our ability to think creatively about specimen usage. If a sample doesn’t meet the primary research goal for which it was collected, can it be repurposed? For example, if a tissue sample has a tumor content that’s too low for a particular study, we can reformat it into a tissue matrix array (TMA) that could then become valuable to a different set of researchers.

We also sometimes engage in collaborations with partners, offering them specimens for assay development that otherwise don’t end up being used, or do our own research with those unused specimens to better understand what caused any gaps in quality or viability. This way, fewer samples go to waste.

5. Remembering Our Ethical Responsibility: Patient Contributions

The heart of this business isn’t just about fiscal responsibility or research progress. It’s also about the patients who donated their specimens, hoping that knowledge about their disease might one day help someone else. At Reference Medicine, we believe we have an ethical obligation to fulfill patients’ wishes and ensure their samples are used as intended – to push the boundaries of innovation and develop new diagnostics and treatments. To let these donations sit unused is to fail those patients. We take this responsibility seriously. Every sample represents a person, and we are committed to honoring that person’s contribution by ensuring their sample is used to advance research which could potentially lead to improvements in the lives of others.

Accelerating Science and Honoring Patients with the “Empty Biobank” Approach

If we’ve learned anything from our previous lives as research scientists and our first three years in running Reference Medicine, it’s that the “empty biobank” approach isn’t just good business; it’s good science. It allows us to quickly deliver the right, high-quality specimens to researchers, helping them move innovation forward; it reduces costs for both biobanks and researchers; and perhaps most importantly, it ensures that the patient’s gift is never taken for granted.

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