Facilitated access to high quality, clinically annotated biospecimens is critical for leveraging new genomic and proteomic technologies to better understand diseases of the human nervous system. On-going efforts at our institution have created several biospecimen repositories for select nervous system disorders such as Alzheimer's disease, but human specimen resources are less adequate for many other disease types. Accordingly, the goal of the Biospecimen and Clinical Data Acquisition Core is to facilitate the coordinated collection, processing, storage, and distribution of biospecimens and clinical data from patients within a broad representation of disorders of the nervous system.
The first aim of this core is to initiate the collection of biospecimens and associated clinical data from patient populations where little support currently exists. The Core will assist investigators who wish to collect biospecimens for specific research protocols, but will also act as a more general resource to bank biospecimens from patients with disorders of the nervous system for future retrospective studies. Collected specimens will include serum, plasma, CSF, genomic DNA, and in some cases, tissue (e.g. surgically resected epileptic foci). Where appropriate, such as in diseases as multiple sclerosis, emphasis will be placed on collecting samples at multiple time points to create a set of biospecimens that can be analyzed over the patient's clinical course.
The second aim of this core is to catalyze the integration of several large, pre-existing biorepositories and clinical databases using a set of common data elements and a web-based biospecimen informatics system (""""""""nsTissue Core"""""""") to create a virtual repository of biospecimens from patients with a wide variety of neurological and psychaitric diseases. As part of this aim, we will also seek to harmonize collection and processing protocols and to share technical resources, making the collection of biospecimens from patients with disorders of the nervous system at our institution more efficient and uniform. As a model for this approach, we will seek to integrate resources from our Alzheimer's Disease Research Center (ADRC) and the Movement Disorders Clinic.
The third aim of this core is to make accessible an inventory of available biospecimen resources and deidentified data generated from the first two aims. Authorized intramural and extramural neuroscience investigators will be able to query this resource, for the purposes of sharing collected biospecimens to promote novel translational studies and collaborations in translational neuroscience.
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