# The Human Tissues Biobank Core

> **NIH NIH P30** · BRIGHAM AND WOMEN'S HOSPITAL · 2020 · $98,060

## Abstract

Project Summary/Abstract: Human Tissues Biobank Core
Lack of access to validated, high quality human cells and tissues from well-characterized patients is one of the
greatest barriers to carrying out human skin disease research. The Human Tissues Biobank Core addresses
this unmet critical need, bringing together a set of unique and powerful resources that will allow skin disease
investigators at any geographic location, affiliated with any institution, to gain access to highly validated, high
quality human tissues with the goal of enabling and supporting high-quality translational human skin disease
research. The Biobank Core allows access to 23,000 well characterized patients, their medical records, their
genotyping results and the ability to call these patients back for further studies. Access is also provided to over
1.5 million banked pathologic specimens with the ability to access medical records with proper IRB approval.
Living patients and pathologic specimens are both searchable by diagnosis and skin diseases are well
represented. The Core also offers access to freshly excised human facial skin, abdominal skin and neonatal
foreskin and to viable populations of purified cells obtained from human skin. Lastly, the core offers
immunodeficient NSG mice grafted with human skin and blood. These mice allow study of living human skin in
an accessible animal model and are useful for studying topical drug delivery, signaling in living human skin, T
cell trafficking to skin, resident memory T cell generation, graft-versus-host disease and skin fibrosis. The Core
also provides IRB protocol drafting and support as well as all services necessary for external investigators to
utilize these resources. The Research Community potentially consists of any investigator at any institution who
wishes to carry out human cell and tissue-based research. We provide 24 well-developed projects from
investigators who wish to utilize Center services. 18 of these investigators would like to use the services of the
Human Tissues Biobank Core. 14 of these investigators are from outside institutions, nine have never worked
in human skin disease research before and seven have worked primarily in mouse models, with little or no
prior work in humans. Eight of these projects are described in detail in this component and other projects are
described fully in the two other Resource Core components of the application. In summary, the Biobank Core
provides access to highly characterized living patients, banked pathologic specimens, fresh human skin and
immunodeficient mice engrafted with human skin and blood. The goal of the Biobank Core is to provide access
to high quality human tissues to any researcher at any institution with the goal of accelerating human skin
disease research.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 9969343
- **Project number:** 5P30AR069625-05
- **Recipient organization:** BRIGHAM AND WOMEN'S HOSPITAL
- **Principal Investigator:** ELIZABETH W KARLSON
- **Activity code:** P30 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2020
- **Award amount:** $98,060
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** — → 2021-07-30

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/9969343

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 9969343, The Human Tissues Biobank Core (5P30AR069625-05). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-23 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/9969343. Licensed CC0.

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