Introduction
The Neuroinflammation Biobank has been established with the aim of supporting translational research in the field of neuroinflammatory diseases, with special focus on Multiple Sclerosis. By establishing this liquid biobank we aimed at addressing the increasing need for high quality biomaterial and especially for living human peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) for cell-based immunological research.
Besides basic and clinical research, there is an increasing interest and steadily growing demand for high quality living cells from clinical trials. Monitoring immune cell functions is becoming more and more important for clinical studies as a factor in the efficiency of therapy, and elucidating mechanism of action of drugs. Therefore, viable and functionally fit cells are becoming invaluable to support the outcome of clinical trials.
Infrastructure: The ISBER (International Society for Biological and Environmental Repositories) guidelines for biorepositories (Best Practices for Repositories: Collection, Storage, Retrieval and Distribution of Biological Materials for Research, Cell Preservation Technology, 2008) have been followed for infrastructure set-up (facility, security systems) and operating the biobank (training of personnel, biomaterial collection and storage). For storing biomaterial-associated data in a way that conforms to Good Clinical Practices and according to data protection guidelines, the Neuroinflammation (NI) Database has been developed in collaboration with the Central Information Office in Marburg (H. Rock and G. Antony). For quality assurance, data related to processing and storage are entered in the database and monitored by the biobank manager. Basic clinical information (diagnosis and therapy related) is also recorded, to enable the users to find the most appropriate samples for research projects. The informed consent, usage of the samples, and, in some cases, the emerging assay results are also stored in the database.
Processes: The NI biomaterial collection is composed of patient material and healthy controls. Patients are recruited during their daily patient care at our hospital or at other clinics in the case of multicenter projects. Typically PBMCs, sera and plasma are collected. The biobank also includes residual diagnostic samples (cerebrospinal fluid and sera), which become part of the biobank after completion of the diagnostic analysis.
Standard operating procedures (SOPs) have been established and introduced into daily practice for biomaterial collection, processing and storage. While biobanking of non-cellular material (sera, plasma and DNA) are well established in many biobanks and research groups, cellular biobanking is still in a developmental phase. We set out to develop an SOP for PBMC biobanking, which supports the diverse aspects of research projects and ensures maximum viability and functionality of PBMCs after thawing.
Date of starting operations: October 2010
Date range of cases: October 2010–ongoing
Category of biobank: Clinical /Translational/ Basic
Focus of biobank: neuroinflammatory diseases of the nervous system
Multiple sclerosis
Neuromyelitis optica
Antibody associated encephalitis
Myositis
Vasculitis
Other neuroinflammatory disorders (e.g., Rasmussen encephalitis, Susac's syndrome, PML)
Other neurological disorders (e.g., dementia, HIV)
Membership of biobank: KKNMS (Competence Network Multiple Sclerosis), CRC128 (Transregional Collaborative Research Center – Clinical Translational Unit), GAIN (German AutoImmunencephalitis Network)
Major source of funding for biobank: BMBF (German Federal Ministry for Education) and Biogen Idec GmbH
Proportional funding sources for biobank:
Example input statistics:
Overall positive response to consent: 95%
Total number of individuals recruited for the biobank: 1734
Example output statistics:
Approximate # of projects supported: 24+5 upcoming in the pipeline
Number of samples released last year: 692
Follow up rate of Multiple Sclerosis Patients: 98%
Publications (based on biomaterial emerging from the biobank): 7
In your view, what are the most valuable/highest priority cases in your biobank?
Samples of multiple sclerosis patients with regular follow up visits. Sampling at different time points enables studies on disease course as well as the effects and mechanism of action of different therapies. Also biomaterial from patients with rare neuroinflammatory diseases.
What are your major challenges?
Time management in case of unexpected samples.
What would you do with $1 million to improve the value of your biobank?
We would invest in infrastructure (space and equipment) and hire personnel to support the patient recruitment process and analysis of associated clinical data.
