Establishing Automated Cryopreservation System for Biospecimen Storage

生物库在生物医学研究中发挥着越来越重要的作用，从简单的 从生态库到大型、复杂的基于基础设施的系统。随着以组学为基础的 技术和不断增长的对生物标本的需求，最近生物标本的数量激增 生物仓库。因此，生物仓库正在通过实施最先进的技术来实现现代化 样品采集、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，辅以经过良好注释的人口统计学和临床/生物数据，目标是 精准医疗成果。德克萨斯心脏研究所(THI)S美国病理学家学院-认可 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 -符合生物仓库和生物谱系分析核心实验室(THI-BRC)的大型液氮(LN2) 长期保存生物标本的超低温保存系统。作为一个共享资源工具，Thi-BRC 提供有价值的服务，如样品(主要是心血管)采集、质量控制、加工、 存储和保存、分析和库存维护，提供给内部调查人员和合作者 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。鉴于我们公司对大量高质量样品的需求日益增长 调查人员和合作者，需要特别注意样品的采集、制备、保存、 检索和库存管理，可通过安装自动低温保存工作站来满足这一要求。 该项目将涉及在Thi-BRC安装BioStore Cryo III自动冷冻保存系统和 将其纳入我们的生物库的现行做法，包括制定设备专用标准 操作程序(目标1)，并培训THI-BRC人员使用和维护这台自动化设备 冷冻保存系统和向研究界宣传这种现代化存储的可用性 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 不需要对当前基础设施进行任何更改。将实施自动冷冻保存，以 在我们的生物信息库操作的不同阶段有不同程度的改进，以改善样本获取、成本和 吞吐量，为工作流提供定量和实质性的好处，例如集成的样本 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 生物储存库将得到标准化和控制，同时减少货架暴露在液氮冷冻室外的时间 温度。以及缓解不打算解冻的生物标本的温度波动，从而 保持生物标本的结构完整性和功能属性，自动冷冻保存 系统将克服耗时的人工流程，提高工作流的效率，为企业带来实惠 内部和外部研究人员关于心血管健康的基础和翻译研究倡议。

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.