MetaBiobank is a catalogue of information describing biological sample collections stored in various biobanks. MetaBiobank is for you if:

• you are looking for specific biological samples to perform research on;
• you wish to share the contents of your biological sample repository with other scientists.

In principle, the way MetaBiobank works could be presented in three simple steps: Our service provides sample collection metadata which can help you decide whether certain samples are of interest to you. Our aim is to provide a simple way to search for interesting biological samples (for researchers) while also providing an additional channel to spread information about biobank resources (for biorepository administrators).

As the authors of MetaBiobank we believe that a coherent, uniform representation of biobank resources will help establish fruitful scientific collaborations and locate customers to sell samples to. It will also foster openness of the life science research community and facilitate broad sharing of research results.

MetaBiobank was created in the scope of the PLGrid NG ( New generation domain-specific services in the PL-Grid Infrastructure for Polish Science ) project and is publicly accessible in browse mode. If you wish to register your own biorepository, you should first obtain a PLGrid account, which is available free of charge to all Polish scientists and their foreign collaborators. Further information can be found on the Help page.