Background: In addition to the Biobanking and BioMolecular resources Research Initiative (BBMRI), which is establishing a European research infrastructure for biobanks, a network for large European prospective cohorts (LPC) is being built to facilitate transnational research into important groups of diseases and health care. One instrument for this is the database "LPC Catalogue," which supports access to the biomaterials of the participating cohorts.
Objectives: To present the LPC Catalogue as a relevant tool for connecting European biobanks. In addition, the LPC Catalogue has been extended to establish compatibility with existing Minimum Information About Biobank data Sharing (MIABIS) and to allow for more detailed search requests. This article describes the LPC Catalogue, its organizational and technical structure, and the aforementioned extensions.
Materials and methods: The LPC Catalogue provides a structured overview of the participating LPCs. It offers various retrieval possibilities and a search function. To support more detailed search requests, a new module has been developed, called a "data cube". The provision of data by the cohorts is being supported by a "connector" component.
Results: The LPC Catalogue contains data on 22 cohorts and more than 3.8 million biosamples. At present, data on the biosamples of three cohorts have been acquired for the "cube," which is continuously being expanded. In the BBMRI-LPC, tendering for scientific projects using the data and samples of the participating cohorts is currently being carried out. In this context, several proposals have already been approved.
Conclusions: The LPC Catalogue is supporting transnational access to biosamples. A comparison with existing solutions illustrates the relevance of its functionality.
Keywords: Biobanks; Biosamples; IT-system; LPC.