The overarching goal of the Human BioMolecular Atlas Program (HuBMAP) and specifically of Tissue Mapping Centers is to generate high resolution 3D biomolecular maps for non-diseased human organs. The overall objective of this pancreas organ specific project (OSP) is to identify and collect whole disease-free pancreas from donors across different sexes and ethnicities, to develop a robust system for tissue processing and distribution, and to generate multi-scale, high resolution, 3D multi-omics molecular atlases of functional regions of human pancreas. This OSP integrates unique expertise ranging from pancreas biology, diabetes, organ procurement, tissue processing, deep-tissue fluorescence imaging analysis (University of Florida), advanced multi-omics mass spectrometry-based tissue mapping (PNNL), and sophisticated high-throughput bioinformatics and 3D reconstruction of molecular maps (Texas Advanced Computing Center) of regions of pancreas, such as islets. Specifically, we will: (1) Identify and collect whole disease-free pancreas from donors through collaboration with the Organ Procurement Organizations (OPO) and Research Intermediaries (RI), and develop infrastructure for timely referral and donor collection, as well as a robust, web-based, specimen inventory and request system that accesses a catalogue of representative sample derivative meta-data (i.e. whole slide image or cytometry) of quality and composition; (2) Provide preserved, embedded, and sectioned pancreas tissue using pancreatic processing processes that have carefully mapped the pancreas in 2D; (3) Perform multi-scale and multi-omic imaging or spatially resolved characterization of pancreas and function-guided tissue sections through the characterization pipeline; and (4) Create comprehensive 3-D biomolecular atlas of pancreas that maps protein, metabolite, and lipid expression throughout functional regions of the pancreas through the Data Analysis Core.
