Applying "Refactoring" Strategies to Promote the Interoperability Across Clinical Biobanks and Utilization of the Research Resources

Since 2009, especially with the discovery of biomarkers and disciplines of translational medicine, the development of Biobank in China has grown incredibly fast. However, we are still facing many challenges nowadays, and the most significant one is that we have not yet fully understood why, what and how we should build biobanks. The heterogeneity of goal setting for the development of Biobank highlights the challenge we need to solve in order to develop with synergy for achieving a greater value with cooperation. This challenge has turned out to result in poor integration of resources for larger research. This article believes that it is critical to have a strategic harmonization first before we can cooperate to improve the development of Biobank. To articulate it, we begin our discussion with a terminology of the industry of software development-"refactoring". Refactoring is a controlled technique improving the design of an existing code base: to avoid multiple small mistakes ahead for greater achievements with the minimal risk and cost before a system is finished. Refactoring is very applicable for us to rethink the way to design and cooperatively develop Biobanks. That would help us with: refactoring the deign of Biobank development; refactoring the strategy and methods; refactoring Biobank management. The entry point is to reconcile the difference between our desire and feasibility across Biobanks. The article will focus on articulating five elements of the Biobank development: the initial intention for goal setting, to rethink the way to develop, clinical annotation, quality assurance/quality control application, integration and sharing. In a summary, we need to set up a strategy for the development of Biobank in harmony and pave the way for the standardization of Biobanks. The goal is to build quality resource across Biobanks, to achieve quality research on the strategic discovery of biomarkers, and to improve healthcare with the research achievements based on Biobanks.