The National Biobank of Korea (NBK) was founded in 2002 to support biobanking of institutional population-based cohort studies by the Korea National Institute of Health (Korea NIH). Six years later, in 2008, the role of NBK expanded from an institutional biorepository of KNIH to a national biobanking hub to support and manage population-based biobanks as well as hospital-based biobanks across the country. NBK is operated by the Division of Biobank at Korea National Institute of Health (KNIH), which is affiliated to the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA).