As health research increasingly relies on biospecimens and associated data, new demands have emerged for biorepositories to provide assurances of the quality of their overall operations, not just assurances of the quality of the biospecimens and data that they hold. The biobanking community has responded in various ways, including the creation of two different programs to disseminate biobanking best practices. This article describes in detail the Canadian Tissue Repository Network (CTRNet) Biobank Certification Program and the College of American Pathologists (CAP) Biorepository Accreditation Program. Despite differences in their approaches, these programs share one key element-assessment of biobanking practices by an external organization. In the absence of a single internationally endorsed biobanking best practices dissemination program, the CTRNet and CAP programs provide two different solutions, each contributing to the pursuit of enhanced quality in biobanking.
Keywords: best practices; biobanking; quality management.