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NOPHO Biobank

The NOPHO Leukemia Biobank is a collaborative project between Nordic paediatric oncology doctors, nurses and researchers who treat children with all types of blood cancer. It started in its current form in 2006, prior to which it was a biobank within a research project.

What is a Biobank?

A biobank is a collection of biological material. The NOPHO Leukemia Biobank (NLBB) contains cells from the blood and bone marrow of children and young people with blood cancer (leukaemia).

The samples have been collected since the early nineties for research purposes. The biobank contains samples from the Nordic countries. Research has meant that we can now cure most children who contract leukaemia. It’s important to improve treatments so that even more people get better and we don’t give unnecessary treatment when it’s not needed.

NOPHO Leukemia Biobank

The NLBB is a Nordic biobank structure designed to facilitate research on childhood leukaemia.In 2006, LLC (the Leukemia and Lymphoma Committee) and the board of NOPHO decided to build up a Nordic biobank for future joint Nordic research. This was at the initiative of G Lönnerholm and BM Frost. A research biobank already existed from their research project (find out more here), which had been completed by that time. The samples from that collection, which was started in the early 1990s, were donated to the project. The sample collection is stored and managed by Uppsala Biobank. Uppsala Biobank is a research and competence centre for biobank issues at Uppsala University and Region Uppsala.The biobank manager, and the biobank custodian for Region Uppsala is Anna Beskow. The sample collection responsible manager for the NLBB is Arja Harila

A Nordic biobank for childhood leukemia
The NOPHO biobank is a collaborative project between Nordic paediatric oncology doctors, nurses and researchers who treat children with all types of blood cancer. It started in its current form in 2006, prior to which it was a biobank within a research project.

Uppsala BioLab

Uppsala BioLab is part of Uppsala Biobank, a research centre and a competence centre for biobank issues at Uppsala University and Region Uppsala.

At Uppsala Biobank, samples are stored for various studies, such as the NOPHO Leukemia Biobank, for use in research.

Uppsala BioLab carries out analyses for research and healthcare purposes and operate in collaboration between Uppsala University and Region Uppsala.

A key task is to receive samples, prepare cells, store samples, extract biomolecules and deal with sample release requests for the NLBB (NOPHO Leukemia Biobank).

Samples are sent to Uppsala from all over Sweden and several other countries that are part of the collaboration. There is also a national paediatric tumour biobank for other childhood cancers at Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm. Both activities are mainly funded by the Swedish Childhood Cancer Foundation to support childhood cancer research.

The contents of the Nordic Childhood Leukaemia Bank

The biobank collects samples from children with leukaemia in the Nordic region. The sample material consists of cells from bone marrow, blood, serum, cerebrospinal fluid and extracted DNA and RNA.

There are usually samples from several different treatment sessions. In other words, from different points in time during the treatment period.

A sample from a leukaemia patient can generate several tubes of sample material from a single sampling. For some diagnoses, samples are taken on different occasions during the treatment. We prepare vital (living) cells from blood and bone marrow, and extract DNA and RNA for genetic studies.

In this way, the sample material from one sampling can be used for several different research projects and provide answers to many questions.

The number of samples taken each year since 1992, when childhood leukaemia biobanking began. In the Nordic region, around 300 children a year contract various types of leukaemia. The increase in sampling in 2020 and 2021 relates to follow-up samples

The pie chart provides a picture of the distribution of samples by country (1992 to December 2021).