Biobanking is a globalized phenomenon that was triggered by scientific and technological advances in the wake of the Human Genome Sequencing Project. Population-based biobanks in the life sciences articulate the shift from rare, monogenetic diseases towards common diseases of high prevalence (Holtzman and Marteau 2000; Halliday et al. 2004). This shift is driven by disciplinary and professional research strategies which aim to expand the explanatory power of genetics, and thus entail the ‘geneticization of medicine’ (Lippman 1991).