VIVO Biobank
A collaboration between Cancer Research UK and Blood Cancer UK, VIVO Biobank is the first national biomedical research resource dedicated to storing the samples and associated data of the full spectrum of cancers in children and young people.
What is the VIVO Biobank?
VIVO Biobank aims to collect samples and data from children diagnosed with cancer in the UK. These samples are then made available for scientists to study, to accelerate research into cancers in the young.
How was the Biobank set up?
VIVO Biobank was formed by merging two existing biobanks, including the Blood Cancer UK Childhood Leukaemia CellBank which was established in 2004. Bringing both banks together provides researchers with a single point of access for the widest collection of historic, current and future samples available to support high quality research.
How the Biobank helps people with blood cancer
There are 88 types of cancer affecting children and young people, including leukaemia which is the most common cancer in children aged up to 14. However, childhood cancers are rare, meaning that researchers can face limited access to samples. As a coordinated national resource, the VIVO Biobank makes rare samples more widely available, enabling the world-class research that’s needed to develop new treatments, improve survival rates and reduce the long-term side effects of cancer in children and young people.
All children and young people with a diagnosis of cancer are eligible to bank samples with VIVO Biobank. This means that every child with cancer is working to benefit other children who will develop cancer in the future.
My son being diagnosed with leukaemia was the most frightening thing that has happened to my family. He survived and now thrives thanks to advances in treatment driven by research. The VIVO Biobank is critical to this.
- - Father of a child who donated to the VIVO Biobank (formerly the CellBank)
Successes using samples from the VIVO Biobank
Research funded by Blood Cancer UK using samples from the VIVO Biobank, led to the development of a new way to identify which children with acute lymphoblastic leukaemia (ALL) will respond well to treatment well, and which are at high risk of seeing their cancer return.
Funding
The VIVO Biobank has been supported by The Hospital Saturday Fund.
