Past, present, and future of environmental specimen banks

Abstract

Environmental specimen banks are an essential part of the infrastructure of environmental sciences. They have various functions: (1) evaluation of governmental environmental policy-making and regulations; (2) a resource for animal health evaluation; (3) research tools to investigate time trends in ecosystems; (4) detection of newly emerging chemicals in the time trends; (5) validations of computer models for environmental phenomena; (6) source identification of contaminants; (7) a tool for food safety; (8) evaluation of genetic selection pressure due to environmental changes. In this review paper, we present a detailed description of the Kyoto University Human Specimen Bank (history, protocol and questionnaires) and provide brief outlines of other representative environmental specimen banks. We then review two illustrative cases in which environmental specimen banks have unveiled insidious contaminations of polybrominated diphenyl ethers and perfluorooctanoic acids. Finally, we give a perspective of new functions for environmental specimen banks in the next 20 years.Keywords Environmental specimen banks Á Food duplicate sample Á Human breast milk Á Human blood

Radiation dose rates now and in the future for residents neighboring restricted areas of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant

“…The food-duplicate samples were collected as previously described (15,53). Participants prepared an additional portion of all meals and beverages consumed in the 24 h of a single day and provided our research team with a list of what they consumed.…”

Distribution of Moyamoya Disease Susceptibility Polymorphism p.R4810K in RNF213 in East and Southeast Asian Populations

“…One source was the Kyoto University Human Specimen Bank, which collected blood samples from the 1990s and 2000s as previously described. 5 Peripheral blood (10 ml) was collected from all participants. Genomic deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) was extracted from the blood samples using a QIAamp DNA Blood Mini Kit (Qiagen, Germantown, Maryland, USA) according to the manufacturer's protocol.…”

Toxicokinetics of perfluoroalkyl carboxylic acids with different carbon chain lengths in mice and humans

“…All paired human samples (bile-serum, CSF-serum and urine-serum) were obtained from the archived samples in the Kyoto University Human Specimen Bank 19,20) . The characteristics of the participants are summarized in Table S2.…”