CRYOSTEM is a French biobank and the unique European biobank dedicated to hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT) complications.
CRYOSTEM has been funded by the French government and by some patients associations from 2010.
Since 2012, patients, adult and pediatrics, have been included according to a specific sampling schedule, enabling a long-term biological follow-up, from the pre-transplant time to 2 years post-transpant, including sampling at the onset of Graft-versus-Host Disease, the major HSCT complication.
Currently, the biocollection has included more than 5,700 patients and 2,300 donors. A total number of almost 200,000 aliquots is available for research including viables cells in DMSO, plasma and dried pellets processed from blood samples.
To achieve these results, CRYOSTEM relies on a collaborative network including clinical units and Biological Resources Centres (BRC) covering the French territory, working together according to harmonized and standardized procedures. Moreover, the management of the biobank has been ISO 9001 certified since 2015. As part of this certification, quality control campaigns are led anually to ensure the samples long-term quality and the treatment homogeneity between the centres.
The management of CRYOSTEM biobank is relying on the use of the Modul-Bio MBioLims solution. CRYOSTEM database has integrated a specific module enabling the correlation between biological data of CRYOSTEM patients and their clinical data entered in the EBMT registry (European Society for Blood and Marrow Transplantation).
Since 2015, researchers have been provided with CRYOSTEM samples through annual call for projects. 10 projects have been granted with CRYOSTEM samples leading to advances in the field of HSCT and hematology, as shown with the latest publication in Nature Communications (https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-019-13498-3).
More information available on CRYOSTEM biobank in the publication : Robert E, et al. “CRYOSTEM Biobank: A National Prospective, Standardized Collection to Better Characterize Allogeneic Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplantation Complications”. Open Journal of Bioresources. 2020; 7:4. DOI: https://doi.org/10.5334/ojb.58
