Biobanking Science: Managing Brain Biorepositories
Brain biorepositories such as the NeuroBioBank in the US, the BrainNet Europe consortium and the SIREN biobanks in Africa support research into brain diseases by providing valuable biospecimens. Biorepositories must follow best practices to maintain the quality of biobanked...
Biobanking Science: Lessons from African Biobanks
With the recent advances in genomic sequencing, proteomics and precision medicine, biobanks are becoming more prevalent around the world. So are large-scale population studies such as the UK Biobank.
H3Africa Project and Biobanks
The Human, Hereditary and Health in Africa (H3Africa)...
Biobanking Science: Biobank Sperm Without Liquid Nitrogen
With gene editing technology such as CRISPR, it is becoming quicker and easier to generate disease models for medical research. Researchers around the world use tens of thousands of different mouse lines. Research institutions can save money and reduce...
Biobanking Science: HIV RNA Stable at -80°C in Biobanks
Biobanks facilitate research by collecting, storing and sharing samples. One of the major concerns that biobanks face is how to best maintain sample quality over long time periods. The AIDS Clinical Trial Group (ACTG) is one of biggest groups...
Biobanking Science: Using FTA Cards to Preserve Nucleic Acids
Biobanking organizations may use a range of different methods to preserve biological samples including cryopreservation, fixation and paraffin-embedding and FTA cards. Biobanking Samples by Cryopreservation Cryopreservation remains the gold standard for long-term biobanking because this method maintains the integrity and biological...
Biobanking Science: How Storage Affects Inflammatory Biomarkers
Biobanking storage conditions can affect long-term sample quality and integrity1. A number of biomarkers are particularly sensitive to storage temperature and can degrade even when biobanked at -80°C. Furthermore, researchers often struggle with variable results from assays run in...
Biobanking Science: Cryopreserving Mouse Embryos
The Jackson Laboratory (JAX) is one of the biggest suppliers of transgenic mice for biomedical research. JAX has a large biobank that cryopreserves and recovers thousands of different mouse strains. Biobanking mouse strains has many benefits for researchers. Biobanking...
Biobanking Science: Mining Paraffin-Embedded Samples for DNA, RNA and Protein
Biobanks may choose to store biological samples as formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded (FFPE) blocks. FFPE preservation is the standard method of collecting and storing surgical pathology samples. This biobanking method preserves tissue morphology at room temperature for many years and is...
Biobanking Science: UK Biobank Compares DNA Quantification Methods
UK Biobank is a major resource for health researchers around the world. UK Biobank collects and stores health, genetic and lifestyle data on 500,000 participants, with the goal of finding treatments and cures for age-related diseases such as Alzheimer’s,...
Biobanking Science: ISBER Best Practices for Biobanks
Biobanks face the challenge of storing and handling many different types of biological samples. Unlike chemicals, biological samples are living. Therefore, it is much more difficult for biobanks to retain the normal structure and function of biological samples throughout...
