In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, and with a large group of highly trained, passionate individuals and leading global experts, UHN Biospecimen Services based within University Health Network (UHN), which is made out of its network Hospitals (Toronto General Hospital, Princess Margaret Cancer Centre and Toronto Western Hospital), has established UHN’s first UHN COVID-19 Biobank, a biorepository holding biospecimens from consented patients who have been diagnosed with COVID-19 at UHN. The UHN COVID-19 was founded on May 5th, 2020 to test the primary hypothesis of measuring severity markers (i.e. circulating markers of endothelial and immune activation) at clinical presentation are early prognostic indicators of COVID-19. With hopes of expediting and facilitating research amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, the UHN COVID-19 Biobank is a valuable resource that will serve as a library for researchers, facilitating access to high quality biospecimens collected longitudinally throughout the course of the infection. The UHN COVID-19 Biobank currently stores an array of COVID-19 specimens such as compartmentalized blood components, including serum, plasma, whole blood and peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) as well as other biofluids, like urine, saliva and nasa swabs. Our biospecimens will be housed indefinitely, as they are essential in understanding key aspects of the disease, including, how to detect infection, how to prevent infection and the development of a COVID-19 vaccine and/or potential treatments.
