The biobank of the Norwegian mother and child cohort study: Experiences after large scale retrieval of samples

International Conference and Exhibition on Tissue Preservation & Bio-banking

July 20-22, 2015 Barcelona, Spain

Kjersti S Rønningen

Posters-Accepted Abstracts: J Tissue Sci Eng

Abstract :

The Norwegian Mother and Child Cohort Study (MoBa) is a prospective populationâ??based pregnancy cohort study conducted by the Norwegian Institute of Public Health (NIPH). The main aim is to find causes of diseases and explain trajectories and variability of health-related traits over a life-course span. MoBa provides a data set with questionnaires and biological samples together with the possibility, if approved by the right authorities, for linkage to other Norwegian registries. The pregnant women and their partners were recruited at 50 hospitals in Norway between 1999 and 2008 with a 40.6% response rate. Almost 1,13,000 pregnancies are included in the study, counting more than 1,14,000 children and 75,000 fathers. The biological samples were collected from both parents during pregnancy and from mothers and children (umbilical cord) at birth. All biological samples were sent to NIPH Biobank for processing and storage. Whole blood, plasma and DNA are available from all sample sets. From mothers at 17-18 weeks of pregnancy also urine and extra whole blood for environmental factors are available, and from approximately 50% of the babies also RNA stored on Tempus tubes. Since the first retrieval in 2006, the number of national and international research groups that base their research on the MoBa Biobank and its comprehensive dataset linkable to national databases, has steadily increased. So far, more than 1,50,000 samples have been retrieved for research purposes and analysis of genetic, epigenetic and environmental biomarkers have been performed.