The Children?s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) is the home to the world?s largest pediatric biobank. it includes over 100,000 internal (i.e. CHOP) blood-derived biological samples and over 450,000 collaborator samples, all of which have DNA stored in a state-of-the-art automated -20C storage instrument. The biorepository has been a cornerstone biomedical resource, yielding >600 direct publications, and leveraged in several thousand more studies. In addition, CHOP has > 60,000 unique PBMC and plasma samples for future RNA and protein work. Unlike the centralized DNA storage, these biosamples (PBMCs, EBVs, RNA, plasma etc.) are stored in individual laboratories across the campus ? in manual freezers with lab-specific back-ups, protocols, and management. The lack of a centralized, automated resource for -80C banking creates redundancies in terms of handling, management, and sample oversight and represents a major institutional risk in terms of inventory control, temperature monitoring, and security. This proposal outlines a cost-effective plan to procure a -80C storage instrument that will replicate the -20C environment, and operate on the same economy of scale throughput for long-term financial viability, charging a modest cost-per-sample ($2/year) for storing external samples. By installing the instrument around an existing infrastructure and research environment, we can take advantage of, at no additional expense, a biobanking resource that employs four full-time staff to routinely process and track high quantities of biosamples, and which catalogs numerous safeguards in terms of redundancies, back-ups, security-systems, emergency protocols, and workflow automation. These will be fully utilized to ensure the viability of biosamples for decades. The need for this resource is particularly pressing given the preciousness of the samples. CHOP is a worldwide referral center for pediatric disease, and the three major users of the instrument are the Hakonarson Lab, which includes >13,000 Mendelian diseases and >90,000 common complex diseases; the Maris Lab, which includes >7,000 neuroblastoma samples; and the Resnick Lab, which spans >5,000 pediatric cancer samples. Beyond these major users, sites across the institution have catalogued many thousands of precious samples. Collectively, they span all major common and rare diseases, and are markedly diverse ? 38% are African American (AA), 6% are Latino/a, and 5% Asian, with the balance being European American. In the immediate term, this resource will support a range of disease-specific RNA-expression studies, only recently financially viable due to the decreased cost of sequencing technology and cloud storage. RNA- sequencing clearly offers a route to understanding risk factors and etiological mechanisms for pediatric cancer, neuropsychiatric diseases, and a range of common/rare diseases, delineated herein. In the longer-term, enhanced bio-storage will support research enterprises for decades to come, preserving a precious resource for use by future technologies and analyses methods for improved health outcomes. This resource will be a major benefit to the entire CHOP network, and has strong backing of the institute and its research leaders.

Public Health Relevance

The Children?s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) has banked dozens of thousands of biosamples from across the research institute ? many of which are incredibly rare ? for current and future biomedical research. The most vulnerable of these samples currently reside in -80C manual freezers throughout CHOP, putting them at considerable risk for long-term storage. This proposal aims to establish a centralized, state-of-the-art resource for banking biosamples at -80C using the Hamilton BiOS XL automated storage system, thereby ensuring the highest quality sample preservation for decades to come.

Agency
National Institute of Health (NIH)
Institute
Office of The Director, National Institutes of Health (OD)
Type
Biomedical Research Support Shared Instrumentation Grants (S10)
Project #
1S10OD025188-01A1
Application #
9708522
Study Section
Special Emphasis Panel (ZRG1)
Program Officer
Horska, Alena
Project Start
2019-07-15
Project End
2020-07-14
Budget Start
2019-07-15
Budget End
2020-07-14
Support Year
1
Fiscal Year
2019
Total Cost
Indirect Cost
Name
Children's Hospital of Philadelphia
Department
Type
DUNS #
073757627
City
Philadelphia
State
PA
Country
United States
Zip Code
19146