Establishing Automated Cryopreservation System for Biospecimen Storage

NIH RePORTER · NIH · R24 · $220,814 · view on reporter.nih.gov ↗

Abstract

Biobanking has been playing an increasingly essential role in biomedical research, growing from simple biospecimen repositories to large complex infrastructure-based systems. With the emergence of omics-based technologies and the ever-increasing demand of biospecimens, there is a recent surge in the number of biorepositories. Consequently, biorepositories are undergoing modernization by implementing state-of-the-art features of sample acquisition, quality control, storage and preservation, and analysis of disease-specific biomarkers, supplemented with well-annotated demographics and clinical/biological data, with the goal of precision medicine outcomes. The Texas Heart Institute (THI)’s College of American Pathologists-accredited and US Food and Drug Administration- and International Society for Biological and Environmental Repositories -compliant Biorepository and Biospecimen Profiling Core Laboratory (THI-BRC) has a large liquid nitrogen (LN2) cryopreservation system for long-term preservation of biospecimens. As a shared resource facility, THI-BRC is providing valuable service, such as sample (mainly cardiovascular) collection, quality-control, processing, storage and preservation, analysis, and inventory maintenance, to internal THI investigators and collaborators throughout the nation, supporting various federal/state/nongovernment-funded basic science and translational research projects and clinical trials. Given the increasing need of large numbers of high-quality samples by our investigators and collaborators, particular attention is needed for sample acquisition, preparation, preservation, retrieval, and inventory management, which can be met by installing an automated cryopreservation workstation. This project will involve installation of the BioStore Cryo III automated cryopreservation system in THI-BRC and its integration into our biorepository current practices, including the development of equipment-specific standard operating procedures (Aim 1), and training THI-BRC personnel in the use and maintenance of this automated cryopreservation system and advertising to the research community the availability of this modernized storage system with increased sample storage capabilities and quality control (Aim 2). Importantly, the proposed system does not require any changes to the current infrastructure. Automated cryopreservation will be implemented to varying degrees at various stages of our biorepository operations to improve sample access, cost, and throughput, offering both quantitative and substantial benefits to the workflow, such as integrated sample traceability, secure storage, increased retrieval speed, and sample preservation. The operation workflow in our biorepository will be standardized and controlled while reducing the time of rack exposure outside the LN2 freezer temperature. Along with mitigating temperature fluctuation of not-intended-to-be-thawed biospecimens, thereby maintaining structural integrity and functional att...

Key facts

NIH application ID
10533660
Project number
1R24OD033737-01
Recipient
TEXAS HEART INSTITUTE
Principal Investigator
Camila Hochman-Mendez
Activity code
R24
Funding institute
NIH
Fiscal year
2022
Award amount
$220,814
Award type
1
Project period
2022-09-01 → 2023-08-31