Establishing Automated Cryopreservation System for Biospecimen Storage

生物银行在生物医学研究中发挥着越来越重要的作用，从简单的 从生物标本储存库到大型复杂的基础设施系统。随着基于组学的 技术和不断增长的生物标本的需求，有一个最近的数量激增， 生物储存库。因此，生物储存库正在通过实施最先进的 样本采集、质量控制、储存和保存以及疾病特异性分析的特点 生物标志物，辅以注释良好的人口统计学和临床/生物学数据，目的是 精准医疗成果德克萨斯心脏研究所（THI）的美国病理学家学院认证 和美国食品和药物管理局-以及国际生物和环境储存库协会 符合标准的生物储存和生物样本分析核心实验室（THI-BRC）拥有大型液氮（LN 2） 用于长期保存生物标本的低温保存系统。作为共享资源设施，THI-BRC 提供有价值的服务，如样本（主要是心血管）收集、质量控制、处理， 存储和保存，分析和库存维护，内部THI调查人员和合作者 在全国范围内，支持各种联邦/州/非政府资助的基础科学和翻译 研究项目和临床试验。鉴于我们对大量高质量样品的需求日益增加， 研究人员和合作者，需要特别注意样本的采集，制备，保存， 检索和库存管理，这可以通过安装自动低温保存工作站来满足。 该项目将涉及在THI-BRC中安装BioStore Cryo III自动冷冻保存系统， 将其纳入我们的生物储存库现行做法，包括制定设备专用标准 操作程序（目标1），并培训THI-BRC人员使用和维护自动化 冷冻保存系统，并向研究界宣传这种现代化储存的可用性 提高样品储存能力和质量控制的系统（目标2）。重要的是，拟议的系统 不需要对现有基础设施进行任何更改。将实施自动化冷冻保存， 在我们的生物储存库操作的各个阶段不同程度地改善样品的获取，成本， 生产能力，为工作流程提供定量和实质性的好处，例如集成样品 可追溯性、安全存储、更快的检索速度和样品保存。我们的操作流程 生物贮藏库将标准化和控制，同时减少液氮冷冻箱外的货架暴露时间 温度沿着减轻不打算解冻的生物样本的温度波动，从而 保持生物样本的结构完整性和功能属性，自动低温保存 该系统将克服耗时的手动过程，提高工作流程的效率，并使THI受益 内部和外部研究人员对心血管健康的基础和转化研究倡议。

Biobanking has been playing an increasingly essential role in biomedical research, growing from simple biospecimen repositories to large complex infrastructure-based systems. With the emergence of omics-based technologies and the ever-increasing demand of biospecimens, there is a recent surge in the number of biorepositories. Consequently, biorepositories are undergoing modernization by implementing state-of-the-art features of sample acquisition, quality control, storage and preservation, and analysis of disease-specific biomarkers, supplemented with well-annotated demographics and clinical/biological data, with the goal of precision medicine outcomes. The Texas Heart Institute (THI)’s College of American Pathologists-accredited and US Food and Drug Administration- and International Society for Biological and Environmental Repositories -compliant Biorepository and Biospecimen Profiling Core Laboratory (THI-BRC) has a large liquid nitrogen (LN2) cryopreservation system for long-term preservation of biospecimens. As a shared resource facility, THI-BRC is providing valuable service, such as sample (mainly cardiovascular) collection, quality-control, processing, storage and preservation, analysis, and inventory maintenance, to internal THI investigators and collaborators throughout the nation, supporting various federal/state/nongovernment-funded basic science and translational research projects and clinical trials. Given the increasing need of large numbers of high-quality samples by our investigators and collaborators, particular attention is needed for sample acquisition, preparation, preservation, retrieval, and inventory management, which can be met by installing an automated cryopreservation workstation. This project will involve installation of the BioStore Cryo III automated cryopreservation system in THI-BRC and its integration into our biorepository current practices, including the development of equipment-specific standard operating procedures (Aim 1), and training THI-BRC personnel in the use and maintenance of this automated cryopreservation system and advertising to the research community the availability of this modernized storage system with increased sample storage capabilities and quality control (Aim 2). Importantly, the proposed system does not require any changes to the current infrastructure. Automated cryopreservation will be implemented to varying degrees at various stages of our biorepository operations to improve sample access, cost, and throughput, offering both quantitative and substantial benefits to the workflow, such as integrated sample traceability, secure storage, increased retrieval speed, and sample preservation. The operation workflow in our biorepository will be standardized and controlled while reducing the time of rack exposure outside the LN2 freezer temperature. Along with mitigating temperature fluctuation of not-intended-to-be-thawed biospecimens, thereby maintaining structural integrity and functional attributes of the biospecimens, the automated cryopreservation system will overcome time-consuming manual processes, improve the efficiency of workflow, and benefit THI’s internal and external investigators’ basic and translational research initiatives on cardiovascular health.