The contractor continues to recruit individuals for the Environmental Polymorphism Registry (EPR) and collect blood samples for DNA isolation. The responsibilites of the contractor include: 1) identifying recruitment venues; 2) planning and implementing study drives; 3)providing study recruiters, phlebotomists, and technicions for processing the samples; 4) coding the samples and isolating DNA; 5) testing the quality of the DNA and standardizing the concentrations and volumes for long term storage. In addition, the contractor also maintains all IRB documentation, which involves editing the exisiting IRB protocol, developing appropriate amendments and making submissions to multiple IRBs. Since the contract has been modified (Jan 2006), the contractor shall work towards recruiting up to 5,000 new EPR recruits each year. Progress on the contract based on the estimated rate of recruitment is difficult to determine at this time as the contract modification was approved only recently (early in 2006). Keywords DNA registry; DNA samples; genetic resource; SNPs
