Program Director/Principal Investigator (Bell, Thomas, J.): PROJECT TITLE: HTORR/ NIMH ASD and Control Brain Recovery Project PROJECT SUMMARY (PY6): The Human Tissue and Organ Research Resource (HTORR) is a program of the National Disease Research Interchange (NDRI) and is an essential resource that uses systems customized to meet individual researcher requests to recover and distribute a broad range of high quality normal and diseased human tissues recovered from a diverse donor pool to facilitate their research needs. In 2015, NDRI established the Autism Spectrum Disease (ASD) HTORR program to recovery ASD and control brain to support the advancement of ASD research. This program has been continuously funded for five program, years by the National Institute for Mental Health (NIMH) via an administrative supplement (grant number 5U42OD011158) to the parent HTORR. The supplemental grant enabled the establishment of a network of tissue source sites (TSS) for the purpose of screening acute death referrals for eligible ASD and control donors. In years 1 through 5 of the program, NDRI developed and maintained a TSS network of 14 source sites that serve a population of approximately 60 million and screen approximately 500,000 acute death referrals for eligible donor candidates for this program. The ASD HTORR program has been successful with the development and implementation of a standard practice to identify both ASD and control brain donors from this important research resource. In PY6, the program predicts that a total of 15 brain recoveries will occur. For program year 6, NDRI is proposing the following key objectives to maintain and enhance the efforts of the program NDRI will: 1) provide oversight and project management for the ASD HTORR brain recovery network via regular outreach, conference calls and site-visits, 2) maintain the screening, authorization, recovery, packaging and shipping training requirements for the ASD HTORR brain recovery network, 3) uphold all IRB requirements for the project through NDRI's IRB protocol with the University of Pennsylvania, including the ASD HTORR project-specific donor authorization, 4) conduct brain recovery retraining events, as needed, to preserve the technical expertise of the ASD HTORR brain recovery network, 5) coordinate donor screening, brain recovery, and packaging with the ASD HTORR brain recovery network and shipping to the National Institute of Health NeuroBioBank at the University of Maryland (NIH NBB-Maryland), 6) provide a combined total of 15 ASD and pediatric control brains and matched temporal muscle samples to the NIH NBB-Maryland, 7) promote the ASD HTORR program and NIH NBB-Maryland at two or more national meetings.
The proposed continuation of the Autism Spectrum Disease Human Tissue and Organ Research Resource (ASD HTORR) program into PY6 will help to meet the unmet demand for brains from post - mortem donors with and without a history of ASD. The establishment of the ASD HTORR program maximize the identification of eligible donors and recovery of the appropriate biospecimens needed to support the advancement of basic research evaluating the etiology of ASD, as well as translational research assessing effective diagnostics, therapies, and cures. The enhanced capabilities of the ASD HTORR brain recovery network also provide for future opportunities to recover brains from donors with other neurological diseases and disorders as well. OMB No. 0925-0001/0002 (Rev. 03/2020 Approved Through 02/28/2023) Page Continuation Format Page
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