How Can I Get More Involved with the Biobank?

The Future at the Indiana Biobank

Medical research is constantly evolving. As new technologies develop, researchers are able to generate more interesting data that can then be used to make progress towards breakthrough medical discoveries.

This means that the Indiana Biobank must also continue to evolve in order to fulfill its mission of being a useful resource for researchers who are making progress in the treatment and prevention of disease. While storing donor samples and making them available to researchers will always be helpful to researchers, recent trends in research show that the biobank could also take other steps to aid researchers both within Indiana and nation-wide.

Many of these steps involve having donors take a more active role in some of the research projects taking place at the biobank. Below are some of the ways that the Indiana Biobank might ask donors to become more involved with certain research projects or types of research.

Completing surveys about your health and lifestyle

While your medical record does provide a snapshot of your overall health, it is not a complete picture. Your medical records do not contain important information on certain health habits and lifestyle choices that contribute to your overall health. In order to provide researchers who use the biobank with a more complete picture of your health, the Indiana Biobank may begin to invite donors to complete additional surveys on various factors that contribute to their health, such as their environment, their habits, and how they’ve decided to live their lives.

Providing additional biosamples

While health researchers can conduct plenty of studies using just a tiny tube of your blood, they could conduct a lot more if they also had access to other biological samples that you provide. This could include urine, additional blood samples, blood products such as plasma, or even different types of tissue. In the future, the Indiana Biobank might begin to reach out to donors to see if they are interested in providing additional samples to the biobank.

Indicating your interest in participating in additional studies

Some researchers that use the samples and data at the Indiana Biobank may benefit from having access to donors who want to play a more active role in their studies. In the future, the Indiana Biobank might ask donors if they would be interested in playing this more active role, potentially allowing researchers to contact them to see if they are interested in participating in their particular research study.

Inside the Indiana Biobank

Giving donors an in-depth look at the biobank's commitment to transforming samples into responsible and impactful research

How Can I Get More Involved with the Biobank?

The Future at the Indiana Biobank