Characteristics and utilisation of the Mayo Clinic Biobank, a clinic-based prospective collection in the USA: cohort profile

Purpose: The Mayo Clinic Biobank was established to provide a large group of patients from which comparison groups (ie, controls) could be selected for case-control studies, to create a prospective cohort with sufficient power for common outcomes and to support electronic health record (EHR) studies.

Participants: A total of 56 862 participants enrolled (21% response rate) into the Mayo Clinic Biobank from Rochester, Minnesota (77%, n=43 836), Jacksonville, Florida (18%, n=10 368) and La Crosse, Wisconsin (5%, n=2658). Participants were all Mayo Clinic patients, 18 years of age or older and US residents.

Findings to date: Overall, 43% of participants were 65 years of age or older and female participants were more frequent (59%) than males at all sites. Most participants resided in the Upper Midwest regions of the USA (Minnesota, Iowa, Illinois or Wisconsin), Florida or Georgia. Self-reported race among Biobank participants was 90% white. Here we provide examples of the types of studies that have successfully utilised the resource, including (1) investigations of the population itself, (2) provision of controls for case-control studies, (3) genotype-driven research, (4) EHR-based research and (5) prospective recruitment to other studies. Over 270 projects have been approved to date to access Biobank data and/or samples; over 200 000 sample aliquots have been approved for distribution.

Future plans: The data and samples in the Mayo Clinic Biobank can be used for various types of epidemiological and clinical studies, especially in the setting of case-control studies for which the Biobank samples serve as control samples. We are planning cohort studies with additional follow-up and acquisition of genetic information on a large scale.