Banking on the human genome project

Biobanks, traditionally sources of tissues, have been redefined as repositories of genetic material. As such, they have been taken up in the move to genomics and have grown from modest repositories of well-documented, local tissue-sample collections to large-scale bioinformatics resources with a national or supranational scope. The records contained in these new biobanks aim to link clinical, life course and environmental, and genetic information at the level of populations and are therefore important infrastructures linking genes and society. In our study of two such biobanks, we have focussed on the metaphors used to discuss these initiatives in various discourses. We explore how biobanks become sites for working out the issues associated with biomedia.