Txagorritxu Hospital has opened the first hospital-based brain bank in the Basque Country, adding a new asset for research into neurosciences. The unit, wich includes a telepathology system so that researchers from other centres can have remote access to biological samples, was inaugurated on 14 December by the Minister for Health and Consumer Affairs, Rafael Bengoa, the deputy minister for Health Planning and Cooperation, Olga Rivera and the general manager of the hospital, Francisco Villar.

This unit in the hospital in Vitoria forms part of a network with ten existing nodes in the Basque hospitals of Basurto, Cruces, Galdakao - Usansolo, Santiago and Donostia; in the Gipuzkoa Polyclinic; in the Basque Centre for Transfusions and Tissues; in the Oncology Institute and in the Department of Health. These interconnected centres constitute the Basque Biobank for Research, also called O+Ehun. Its structure enables the collection of samples, their processing and storage in the hospitals themselves, and their subsequent distribution for research purposes.

The 200 square metres that the new space at Txagorritxu occupies represents a total investment of 1.3 million euros, and is financed by the Basque Health Service (Osakidetza), the Ministry of Education and Science, the Carlos III Institute and the Basque Foundation for Healthcare Innovation and Research (BIOEF).

The facilities include a research laboratory and a Biobank node, which in turn contains three separate banks; one for DNA, another for tumour tissues and a third for brains. In this last section, 67 of these organs are conserved, many of them from people who have died in the Basque Country from visible human spongiform encephalopathies, or mad cow disease, which is an area that Txagorritxu has become a specialist in over the last decade.

Both the general manager of Txagorritxu and the deputy minister announced at the inauguration that the new labs in Vitoria are the first step towards “a future Research Institute in Alava”, and they praised the research efforts that are being made both in Txagorritxu and in Santiago Hospital.

Both centres have become leaders in research in the Basque Country on sleep apnoeas and on first psychotic episodes. Furthermore, they make up 61% of all Basque research in cardiology, 42% in psychiatry and 40% of all studies in respiratory research.

The new brain bank at Txagorritxu is therefore an important new tool for research into neurosciences in the Basque Country, and it adds to the brain bank at the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU), led by the research scientist Javier Meana, which includes brains donated by psychiatric patients suffering from illnesses such as depression, schizophrenia or bipolar disorder.