Biobanking has been playing a crucial role in the development of new vaccines, drugs, biotechnology, and therapeutics for the prevention and treatment of a wide range of human diseases. This puts biobanks at the forefront of responding to the ongoing worldwide outbreak of the severe pandemic, coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). The leading public health institutions […]
Children are disproportionally affected by Lyme disease, which is diagnosed in more than 300,000 persons in the United States each year. Clinicians diagnose Lyme disease using a 2-tier examination of enzyme immunoassay (EIA) and immunoblot results. Current Lyme disease diagnostic tests have well-described limitations that include false negatives early in the disease and the inability […]
Microbiomes are dynamic and complex systems consisting of – bacteria, archaea, fungi, algae, protists, and viruses. Microbiome research started back in the 17th century and rapidly evolved in subsequent years. However, the biobanking infrastructure is currently not prepared for the biobanking of microbiomes. As it stands today, biobanks primarily focus on particular aspects of a […]
In the spring of 2020, when instruction moved online and most research became remote, efforts picked up at the UW Carbone Cancer Center Translational Science Biocore BioBank. Researchers across campus began pivoting their studies to address the SARS-CoV-2 virus, which causes COVID-19. To do their research, they needed samples from patients. To support COVID-19 research […]
In a study that has unprecedented implications to advance both medicine and biodiversity conservation, researchers have sequenced 131 new placental mammal genomes, bringing the worldwide total to more than 250. The results of the mammal genome project, published in the Nov. 12 issue of the journal Nature, catalog and characterize whole branches of Earth’s biodiversity, spanning […]
As was the case for COVID-19, identifying wild animal reservoirs can be challenging when biorepositories are lacking. In most countries, natural history biorepositories remain poorly supported and largely disconnected from public health initiatives. To achieve comprehensive decentralized pathogen surveillance, there is an urgent need to develop environmental and biodiversity infrastructure in biodiverse countries experiencing high rates […]
Here is your monthly curated pick of biobanking news, jobs, and events from across the globe. OpenSpecimen Webinar Coleen Damcott, Director, Univ of Maryland Medical (UMM) Biorepository will talk about the usage of OpenSpecimen and integration with robotics freezer (Hamilton BiOS). Click here to register. Biobanking Conversations (BbC #2) – Gavin Higgins, Victorian Cancer Biobank BbC attempts to cover […]
The Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has had a profound impact on health and the way people live globally. Our knowledge of the disease is increasing at a fast pace and thus far has largely been from observational studies and registries, with an increasing number of clinical trials underway assessing treatment options, vaccination and other […]
University of Toronto and its partner hospitals have been awarded a combined total of nearly $2.5 million to support infrastructure and equipment needs for two projects, each aimed at better understanding and tackling COVID-19. The funding is being awarded by the Canada Foundation for Innovation’s (CFI) Exceptional Opportunities Fund in an effort to help educational […]
More than 3,000 COVID-19 clinical trials have launched in the past year. That sounds like good news, but many of these are ill-suited for identifying interventions that save lives. Bloomberg School researchers have responded with strategies that can better distinguish clinically meaningful signals from confounding statistical noise. Many COVID-19 trials have too small a sample […]
