The Biobank Unit of Shanghai Mental Health Center is established in 2012. As a tertiary level A psychiatric hospital, it features the storage of psychiatric clinical samples and related data, and its main services include standardised biological sample handling, storage, processing, inbound and outbound storage and supporting consultation services. The projects supported by the Biobank include the Ministry of Science and Technology of China, the 973 Programme, the 863 Programme, the National Natural Science Foundation of China and other translational medicine research, which have been instrumental in supporting applied basic research in the diagnosis of the causes of mental illness, the evaluation of efficacy, individualised medicine and disease prevention.