The project started in 1989 under the executive committee for construction of lipid database. The committee was organized by members of The Japanese Conference on the Biochemistry of Lipids (JCBL) and constructed the first comprehensive lipid database in Japanese (President: Akira Hayashi, Vice-president: Nobuo Ueta, Secretary: Kiyohiro Watanabe). The database included 16 lipid classes: fatty acid, long chain aldehyde, long chain alcohol, long chain base, bile acid, glyceride, phospholipid, glycolipid, lipoprotein, lipopolysaccharide, steroid, prostanoid, ether type lipid, mycolic acid and wax. Each record contained lipid name, biological activity, source, references, structure and spectra. About 2,700 records were collected and saved on floppy discs.

The initial three-year project started as a joint research between the International Medical Center of Japan (IMCJ http://www.imcj.go.jp/) and the Japan Science and Technology Corporation (JST http://www.jst.go.jp/). A new executive committee was organized (President: Shoshichi Nojima, Vice-president: Mieko Oshima, Secretary: Kiyohiro Watanabe and Etsuko Yasugi). The committee decided to collect the data on 27 lipid classes in English. Molecules in each class were collected independently under 27 team leaders and 122 data informants.
The database became publicly available from October 1999. The database server was placed at the University of Tokyo where the office of JCBL was located. The total number of molecules was about 5400.

After adding one lipid class (lipid peroxides), 28 lipid classes were reorganized into 17 lipid groups. The DERIVED LIPIDS group now includes fatty acid, long chain alcohol, long chain aldehyde, and long chain base and ceramide. The FAT-SOLUBLE VITAMIN group includes carotenoid, coenzyme Q, vitamin A, vitamin D, vitamin E, and vitamin K. The GLYCOLIPID group includes glycosphingolipid, glycoglycerolipid and others. The PHOSPHOLIPID group includes glycerophospholipid, PAF, and sphingophospholipid.
In 2004, JCBL officially established an executive committee (President: Yousuke Seyama, Secretary: Etsuko Yasugi) for updating the database.

LIPIDBANK for Web became the official database of JCBL, to which all rights were delegated from IMCJ and JST. The name of database changed to "LipidBank". The Hopanoid group was removed and the number of category is now 16. The database system and its contents were updated and reorganized by the JCBL committee members (President: Masahiro Nishijima).

If you have questions or suggestions, please contact with:

President: Masahiro Nishijima

Members
Makoto Arita	Masanori Arita	Kentaro Hanada
Takeshi Kasama	Yoshihiro Kita	Tetsuyuki Kobayashi
Kazuo Nakamura	Mieko Oshima	Yousuke Seyama
Takao Shimizu	Akemi Suzuki	Ryo Taguchi
Yasunobu Uchijima	Etsuko Yasugi	Kazuaki Yokoyama