National Institute of Health

• National Center for Stem Cell and Regenerative Medicine
• National Brain Biobank of Korea

National Brain Biobank of Korea (NBBK)

• The National Brain Biobank of Korea is being established to collect advanced brain and human body resources with antemortem clinical data, such as brain imaging scans, and postmortem pathological information and provide them to basic and clinical researchers to activate Korea’s dementia research.
• The National Brain Biobank of Korea Network, which is composed of Samsung Medical Center, Seoul National University Hospital, Pusan National University Hospital, and Myongji Hospital, collects brain research resources and conducts specialized research for such purposes as dementia diagnosis standardization based on neuropathology using brain imaging scans of brain banks, building a brain autopsy registry, and standardizing dementia diagnosis based on bodily fluid biomarkers.
• This is an infrastructure project to support research to overcome dementia. It involves obtaining the integrated comprehensive data of clinical information that have been accumulated for one to ten years from brain disease patients before their death (age, gender, neuropsychological test results, blood test results, etc.), human body resources (sera, plasma, cerebrospinal fluid, and DNA), brain imaging scans (MRI and PET), and pathology analysis of brain tissue in cooperation with multi-institutional cohort businesses. As of January 2022, 151 brains have been obtained and 1,244 people have signed up for brain donation.

Current Status of National Brain Biobank of Korea