Spurred by a confluence of factors, most notably the decreasing cost of high-throughput technologies and advances in information technologies, a number of population research initiatives have emerged in recent years. These include large-scale, internationally collaborative genomic projects (Table 1) and biobanks (Table 2), the latter of which can be defined as an organized collection of human biological material and associated data stored for one or more research purposes. Biobanks are a key emerging research infrastructure, and those established as prospective research resources comprising biospecimens and data from many participants are viewed as particularly promising drivers of biomedical progress. Such biobanks, particularly those publicly funded and set up to promote the public interest, have expanded across the globe in recent years.