To the Editors:
Research into the pathogenesis of diseases often requires access to appropriate tissue specimens 1. The lung is not an easily accessible organ. Hence, respiratory research is often hampered by the lack of a large number of adequately preserved lung samples harvested from patients whose phenotype had been carefully and consistently characterised 2.
Since 2006, the Spanish government has funded a national network for respiratory research (CIBERES), which is currently formed of 34 research groups working cooperatively on the investigation of basic, clinical and epidemiological aspects of the main respiratory diseases (www.ciberes.org) 3. To facilitate translational respiratory research, CIBERES has taken advantage of its multicentric nature and has designed, organised and established a nonprofit CIBERES Pulmonary Biobank Consortium (CPBC) that follows the recommendations of the International Society for Biological and Environmental Repositories 4 and Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development 5. The CPBC initiative is fully funded by public, competitive research funds, and is similar to the Lung Tissue Research Consortium …