Facilitated access to high quality, clinically annotated biospecimens is critical for leveraging new genomicand proteomic technologies to better understand diseases of the human nervous system. On-going effortsat our institution have created several biospecimen repositories for select nervous system disorders such asAlzheimer'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 coordinatedcollection, processing, storage, and distribution of biospecimens and clinical data from patients within abroad representation of disorders of the nervous system.
The first aim of this core is to initiate the collectionof 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 willalso act as a more general resource to bank biospecimens from patients with disorders of the nervoussystem for future retrospective studies. Collected specimens will include serum, plasma, CSF, genomicDNA, and in some cases, tissue (e.g. surgically resected epileptic foci). Where appropriate, such as indiseases as multiple sclerosis, emphasis will be placed on collecting samples at multiple time points tocreate a set of biospecimens that can be analyzed over the patient's clinical course.
The second aim of thiscore is to catalyze the integration of several large, pre-existing biorepositories and clinical databases using aset of common data elements and a web-based biospecimen informatics system ('nsTissue Core') to createa virtual repository of biospecimens from patients with a wide variety of neurological and psychaitricdiseases. As part of this aim, we will also seek to harmonize collection and processing protocols and toshare technical resources, making the collection of biospecimens from patients with disorders of the nervoussystem at our institution more efficient and uniform. As a model for this approach, we will seek to integrateresources 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 deidentifieddata generated from the first two aims. Authorized intramural and extramural neuroscienceinvestigators will be able to query this resource, for the purposes of sharing collected biospecimens topromote novel translational studies and collaborations in translational neuroscience.
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