Celebrating 20 years of biobanking - empowering cancer research

Celebrating 20 years of biobanking - empowering cancer research

For 20 years, the Victorian Cancer Biobank (VCB) has played a vital role in advancing cancer research in Victoria – equipping researchers with high-quality, well-annotated biospecimens to support discovery and improve outcomes for people with cancer.

When the VCB was established, it was addressing a fundamental gap. Researchers lacked reliable access to tissue samples, and what was available was often limited, inconsistently annotated, and difficult to obtain.

“This made research onerous, slow and costly,” said Victorian Cancer Biobank General Manager, Dr Wayne Ng. “Without a coordinated model or access to any large-scale biospecimens, researchers were limited to the scope of the research they could perform.”

These challenges were acute for rarer cancers where limited samples slowed progress and left critical questions unanswered.

To address this, a consortium of partners came together in 2006, backed by the Victorian State Government and led by Cancer Council Victoria, to establish a coordinated, large-scale biobanking model. Today, the consortium members include Austin Health, Eastern Health, Monash Health, Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre and Royal Melbourne Hospital.

By uniting major health and research institutions, the VCB has created one of the largest cancer biobanks in Australia – transforming how researchers access the resources they need.

Evolving to meet forefront research needs

At its core, the VCB is powered by people. More than 42,000 Victorians have donated tissue and blood samples, building a repository of over half a million biospecimens that are accelerating lifesaving discoveries.

In 2012, the VCB evolved to adopt a supply-and-demand model – a more dynamic approach that aligns biospecimen collection with real-time research needs.

“There are a lot of researchers out there that have their specific questions and very specific needs, and so the capability in a sense switched to addressing those needs by accessing tissues in project-specific fashions,” said Prof. Geoff Lindeman, Head, Melbourne Health Tissue Bank.

Today, this approach underpins an agile, collaborative and modern model - combining responsive collection with deep archival specimen and data to strengthen research capability across a wide range of cancer types.

In 2020, all consortium sites achieved Canadian Tissue Repository Network (CTRNet) certification, providing international recognition of the quality and consistency of our biospecimens and services, an assurance critical to our scientific community.

This enabled a global partnership with the Singapore Translational Cancer Consortium in 2024 to share specimen catalogues and strengthen research links between Australia and Singapore.

Accelerating discovery

 The VCB has supported nearly 400 research projects and 150 clinical trials and continues to evolve alongside research priorities.

Between 2021 and 2025, our focus expanded to include low-survival cancers such as lung cancer – aligning with the Victorian Cancer Plan in supporting areas of urgent need and equity of cancer outcomes. This increased collections from low-survival cancers by 23 per cent – resulting in more than 62,000 biospecimens from over 4,000 patients being made available for research.

For WEHI lung cancer researcher, Professor Marie-Liesse Labat, the VCB has been critical for her studies, equipping her with tissue samples to deepen her research in immune and tumour responses to find better treatments for lung cancer.

“The VCB has really been essential to our research, it has enabled us to access a range of samples that represent the reality of what the disease is in patients,” she said.

Driving innovation and collaboration

 Over two decades, VCB-supported research has contributed to more than 350 publications, and our biospecimens have underpinned modern innovations in cancer diagnosis and monitoring. The development of a blood-based test to aid the diagnosis of colorectal cancer has been one success story. 

“ColoSTAT is a great example of us providing samples to support the basic science at CSIRO back in 2008 to establish a panel of biomarkers. We continued supplying samples through Rhythm Bioscience’s research that has led to a validated commercial product today,” said Dr Ng.

Beyond 20 years as a critical research infrastructure

As we mark this 20-year milestone, the VCB is continuing to modernise. The launch of a consortium-wide e-consent platform, with fully digitised consent, will improve patient engagement and enable more flexible participation in research.

We’re also advocating for a nationally coordinated approach to biobanking and expanding partnerships to meet diverse research needs. Together, these efforts will broaden access to biospecimens, support more ambitious research, and accelerate the next generation of cancer breakthroughs.

“This milestone belongs to the donors, researchers and clinicians, and all our consortium partners who have helped build a resource – in our very own backyard – that is critical to the future of cancer care,” said Cancer Council Victoria CEO, Todd Harper AM.