BioOne

We will make our utmost efforts to strengthen national brain research capabilities, including establishing a specialized portal to enhance research support services.

The Korea Brain Bank was established in 2014 under the Korea Brain Research Institute (KBRI) to address social and economic issues, such as the increasing number of patients with degenerative brain diseases due to an aging population.
To support research on Korean-specific brain diseases and brain diseases across the life cycle, the Korea Brain Bank was licensed as a biobank in 2014 and, starting in 2016, established the Korea Brain Bank Network (KBBN) by selecting and nurturing regional partner hospital brain banks. In 2017, it was designated by the Ministry of Science and ICT as a registered preservation institution for life research resources.

The Korea Brain Bank operates a brain donation program consisting of partner hospital brain banks, pre-mortem registration for brain donation, and post-mortem brain donation. It provides researchers with accessible brain research resources and related information via the KBBN portal (https://kbbn.kbri.re.kr).
From 2015 to 2023, 2,735 individuals registered as pre-mortem brain donors, and the bank secured 281 post-mortem brain research cases and 2,776 pre-mortem brain research cases.
Since 2017, through the KBBN distribution desk, a total of 141 brain research resource distributions (71 research projects) have been provided to various researchers in academia, industry, and hospitals, with a goal this year of offering over 2,000 human and animal brain tissue samples for research support.

The Korea Brain Bank will transition from a supply-centered to a demand-centered, customized operational model as the central bank of the brain cluster, making every effort to strengthen national brain research capabilities, from policies, standards, and education for resource acquisition, management, and utilization to establishing a specialized portal for enhanced research support services.