Biobanks empower clinical research to improve our understanding of complex diseases. Towards this, a wide range of equipment is available for sample collection, preparation, analysis, storage, barcoding, transport, etc. Automated systems provide valuable knowledge, streamlined process steps, and enhanced quality. Automation also leads to “economies of scale” so that the biobank can manage growth without […]
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 […]
About UMM Biorepository The University of Maryland School of Medicine established a biorepository intending to provide the resources and support for large-scale studies. They aim to empower basic and clinical researchers to make discoveries in genomics and ‘omics’ sciences and translate these discoveries to more effective diagnostics and therapeutics. Currently, the UMM Biorepository has data of 28000+ […]
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 […]
A team at Norwich Research Park, who normally look after the safe storage of human tissue such as blood, saliva, stools, and tissue in state-of-the-art freezers for analysis by researchers at the Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital (NNUH), University of East Anglia (UEA) and Quadram Institute, has played a key role recently in discovering the […]
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 […]
The National Museum of Natural History Biorepository (NMNH) is a massive collection of cryogenically preserved, genomic-grade samples of the Earth’s diversity. It is a resource for scientists worldwide. Between the Biorepository and the pinned collection, the National Insect Collection at NMNH contains about 36 million specimens representing 450,000 species, and nearly 60% of known insect families. […]
