Alteration and Renovation ? ?Advancing Precision Medicine Research Through Improved Facilities to Support the Development of Well-Annotated Biospecimen Repository? ABSTRACT The overall objective of the ?Kansas Institute for Precision Medicine? (KIPM) COBRE at the University of Kansas Medical Center (KUMC) is to advance the customization of healthcare through promoting innovative scientific discoveries. We have entered the era of Precision Medicine, an initiative recently announced as part of the 21st Century Cures Act, which is focused on using the molecular basis of diseases to better match patients with the appropriate therapies and care resulting in improved outcomes. Proposed within this KIPM COBRE are collections of human biospecimens that will span many diseases and health conditions, which will enable the COBRE faculty to address important scientific questions with a focus on precision medicine. To advance this mission, we have established the Biobanking and Biomarker Validation (BBV) Core, which will support the identification, collection, processing, and banking of biospecimens from specific patient populations to support our COBRE faculty. To advance precision medicine research within this COBRE and within the University, one of the central goals of the BBV core will be to 1) Provide centralized space for long-term cyrostorage and monitoring of human biospecimens. The BBV core is designed to centralize these essential services, including consenting patients, collecting samples, processing tissue, blood, and other bodily fluids using established SOPs, providing long-term storage and 24/7 monitoring, and clinical annotation. To support the long-term storage and monitoring of these invaluable samples, we are requesting funds to expand the footprint of the BBV core by repurposing office space into dedicated laboratory space for liquid nitrogen freezers and long-term cryostorage. The success of the BBV core and ultimately the COBRE faculty is essential to advancing the mission of the KIPM to advance the customization of healthcare through promoting innovative scientific discoveries. Improving the facilities to support these activities are essential.
