biospecimen

College of Medicine Biobank Accredited by College of American Pathologists

The College of Medicine’s Institute for Personalized Medicine Biobank received accreditation for its exceptional storage, tracking and maintenance of samples from a national organization renowned for their quality assurance standards. The biorepository at the Institute for Personalized Medicine joins more than 8,000 facilities worldwide to be accredited by the College of American Pathologists, the world’s largest body of […]

Posted on by Sharvari Gokhale

OpenSpecimen v8.0 Released

OpenSpecimen v8.0 has been released. Below are some of the enhancements included in the release: Customizable home page with widgets New Forms user interface User-level custom forms support for maintaining training records New in query: Limit the total quantity of aliquots Survey: Support for query Supply: CSV import support Many other bug fixes and improvements […]

Posted on by Sharvari Gokhale

Creation and Maintenance of a Living Biobank at University of Rostock

In light of the growing knowledge about the inter-individual properties and heterogeneity of cancers, the emerging field of personalized medicine requires a platform for preclinical research. Over recent years, the University of Rostock has established a biobank of colorectal and pancreatic cancers comprising of primary tumor tissue, normal tissue, sera, isolated peripheral blood lymphocytes (PBL), […]

Posted on by Sharvari Gokhale

Identification, Biobanking, and Large-Scale Production of SARS-CoV-2-Specific Memory T Lymphocytes From COVID19 Convalescent Donors

The new SARS-CoV-2 emerged as a worldwide pandemic in late 2019. It is causing an infectious disease known as COVID-19, with a wide and diverse range of symptoms. In most infected patients, the virus causes mild symptoms including fever and cough. In some cases, however, the virus causes life-threatening disease. The symptoms include pneumonia, dyspnea, […]

Posted on by Sharvari Gokhale

Biobanking as a Newsletter – April 2021

Here is your monthly curated pick of biobanking news, jobs, and events from across the globe. We hope you will find this enriching and useful. Please do let us know your feedback on how we can improve this newsletter. Interviews and webinars We conducted very well-attended webinars with two of our favorite customers from across two […]

Posted on by Sharvari Gokhale

Estonian Biobank’s Study on Mental Health Genetics

Nearly every second individual is affected by a mental health problem in their lifetime, but the exact mechanisms causing these problems remain unclear. To bring more clarity to the field of mental health, the Estonian Biobank at the University of Tartu has launched a large study, which is unique in the world. The results of […]

Posted on by Sharvari Gokhale

Building a Living Biobank for Ovarian Cancer

Ovarian cancer is the leading cause of gynecological-related mortality. High-grade serous ovarian carcinoma (HGSOC), the most prevalent subtype, develops rapidly and is rarely diagnosed before the advanced-stage disease. Treatment options are limited and survival rates have not improved substantially for 20 years. To develop a new, more effective treatment, researchers need pre-clinical models that more closely reflect ovarian cancer in vivo. While cancer cell […]

Posted on by Sharvari Gokhale

Interview with OpenSpecimen Implementation Team at FIND Diagnostics

In the fourth episode of “Biobanking Conversations”, Srikanth Adiga (CEO, OpenSpecimen) talks to Stefano Ongarello and Anna Mantsoki from FIND’s “OpenSpecimen Implementation Team” to understand their COVID related work, internal processes, training mechanisms, & best practices. FIND (Foundation for Innovative New Diagnostics, Geneva) is a global non-profit organization driving innovation in the development and delivery […]

Posted on by Sharvari Gokhale

Project Tracker Implementation at Washington University

Dave Mulvihill, Director Informatics, Washington University (WU) Tissue Procurement Core, presented how they use OpenSpecimen’s “Project Tracker” module to streamline biobank “Projects & Requests” – eliminating cumbersome Excels and relying on emails.  Washington University is one of the oldest and largest adopters of OpenSpecimen. At WU, OpenSpecimen is used by 100+ users across ~50 research […]

Posted on by Sharvari Gokhale