Table 1.

Current environmental specimen banks in 2008

Description	Kyoto University Human Specimen bank	es-Bank	Time capsule NIES
Home page	http://hes.pbh.med.kyoto-u.ac.jp/kuhsb/	http://www.ehime-u.ac.jp/~cmes/esbank/esbank.htm	http://www.nies.go.jp/timecaps1/index.htm
Foundation	Founded in 2004 by Department of Health and Environmental Sciences, Kyoto University Graduate School of Medicine	Founded in 2002 by Center for Marine Environmental Studies	Founded in 2004 by National Institute for Environmental Studies
Storage	−30°C	−25°C	−20 to −150°C
Sample description	Human blood and serum sampled with 1-day meals. Those samples have been collected from 1970s to 2008 in Japan, China, Korea, Philippine, Thailand, and Vietnam. While there are some blood samples and meal samples, which have been collected independently, most of the samples have been collected in a food duplicate design	Wildlife, sea water, soils from various locations of the world	Fishes, shellfishes and marine sediments
	Breast milk samples have been collected from 1980s to the present in Japan, China, Korea, and Vietnam		Airborne particulate matters
	Urine samples have been collected in the 2000s in Japan		Human breast milk collected in Tokyo from 2001 to 2007, 30 samples per year
Sample quantity or sampling	Blood or serum: 28,000	This bank has collected the tissues and organs of 1,000 species with 100,000 wild life and environmental samples	Bivalves have been collected all over Japan from 2003. They have been collected at eight sites annually and other more than 100 sites Fish and sediments in Tokyo bay collected at 20 sites annually from 2003
	Meals: 3,500 days
	Breast milk: 3,000	Details are unknown for human breast milk samples
	Urine: 14,000		Airborne particulate matters from six sites
			Human breast milk samples, totally about 600
Meta data	Serum and food samples are accompanied by personal information, including age, sex, occupation, food habit, and meal menu. Breast milk samples were collected with questionnaires between 0 to 12 post-partum weeks		No description on the home page
Design	Human exposure monitoring: Most of blood and meals samples were collected in a food duplicate design (see text)	Global marine monitoring	No specific designs
Functional category of the bank	Retrospective human exposure monitoring for Asian countries	Retrospective ecological monitoring	Long-term storage for future studies

	NBSB	German ESB for human tissues	Swedish ESB
Home page	http://www.nist.gov/public_affairs/gallery/specimen.htm	http://www.umweltprobenbank.de	http://www.nrm.se/
Foundation	Founded in 1979 by National Institute of Standards and Technology and U.S. EPA	Founded in 1981 by University Hospital Munster and Federal Environmental Agency	Founded in 1980 by the Swedish Museum of National History
Storage	−80 to  −150°C	−150°C	−30 to −80°C
Sample description	Human liver, Human blood serum, Human blood spots, human food specimens	24-h urine, whole blood and blood plasma have been collected from the beginning. Until 2005, saliva, scalp and pubic hair had been collected. Recently, collection of placenta, umbilical cord blood and amniotic fluid have initiated	Mammals, Birds, Eggs, Wings of birds, Fish, Mosses soil, sludge, breast milk and food products
	Mussels and oysters, fish livers and muscle, fish (whole)		In total approximately 8,000–9,000 specimens have been collected annually and 3,500 specimens have been processed for chemical and biological analysis
	Marine sediments, marine mammal tissues, seabird eggs, peregrine falcon eggs and feathers
Sample quantity or sampling	While relatively small numbers of human samples (8–722), a large numbers of ecological animal samples	125 volunteers aged between 20 and 29 per location and year for 4 sites joined the donation of samples	Mammals: 20,000
			Birds:21,000, eggs: 6,500
			Wings of birds: 30,000
			Fish: 115,000, mosses: 10,000, sludge: 8,000
			Breast milk: 800, food products: 12,000
Meta data	No description on the home page	Sex, age, place of birth, medical data, and personal behavior by a standard self-reported questionnaire	Registered in database together with results made by chemical and biological analysis
Design	Domestic ecosystem monitoring with consideration of trophic levels and wild animal health status	Human body burden monitoring	Nordic ecosystem monitoring of ecological system with consideration of food chain and biological diversities
Functional category of the bank	Whole ecological monitoring in the sea around USA	Real and retrospective monitoring and long-term storage	Real-time and retrospective monitoring and long-term storage

ESB, Environmental Specimen Bank; es-Bank, Ehime University; NIES, National Institute for Environmental Studies, Japan; NBSB, National Biomonitoring Specimen Bank, USA