Central biomaterial bank - Project description
Background
To find new methods of treating heart failure, it is necessary to understand the causes and pathophysiological mechanisms involved in its development. There are numerous laboratory methods available for this purpose, the range of which is expanding year by year. The starting materials for many of these methods are blood (whole blood, plasma and serum) and DNA. Materials for which additional information about the clinical course of the disease or special laboratory parameters exist are extraordinarily valuable. Particularly meaningful results can be achieved from this combination. Until now, these materials were always acquired as part of a single study. For later inquiries or for use in newly established laboratory methods, patients must once again be identified and material collected in laborious, time-consuming processes. This means that it takes a long time until results can be achieved using new methods.
Objective
The goal of this project is the creation of an extensive biomaterials bank. Materials (blood, serum, plasma, DNA) from all patients who participate in studies in the network will be collected for this purpose. The objective is a consistently high quality standard for the processing, storage and management of all samples. The biomaterials bank is an investment in the future by the network. It enables the competence network and the research community in general to acquire new scientific knowledge about the development, progression and prognosis of the different forms of heart failure.
Implementation
Each time a patient is documented in a study in the competence network, blood (EDTA whole blood and serum) is drawn from the patient, sent by post to the central biomaterials bank and processed there in the central incoming sample laboratory according to specified standards. In the first two subsidization periods, a total of 100,000 samples from approximately 10,000 patients was documented and processed (aliquoting, DNA extraction). These samples are stored in climate-controlled rooms used especially for this purpose at the biomaterial bank of the Experimental and Clinical Research Center (ECRC) in Berlin-Buch at temperatures between -20 and -80 °C. Some of these samples are already in use in different subprojects (SP 5, SP 6b, SP 9a, SP 10 and SP 12). Further internal and external projects will follow.
Added value via networking:
As the central infrastructure project for all samples, the biomaterials bank is deeply involved in the networking. There are also intensive collaborations with other competence networks (e.g. the Competence Network for Congenital Heart Defects) and biobanks. The biomaterial bank of the Heart Failure Competence Network also participates in domestic and European pilot projects for networking biomaterial banks (BBMRI, ESFRI, etc.). The goal of these projects is to develop uniform methods for sample processing and use.