A virtual tissue bank is in development in Arizona, thanks to a partnership between the Arizona Biomedical Research Commission and Reston, Va.-based 5AM Solutions.
The bank will function as a central, Web-based biological specimen tracking software system to provide collaboration between Arizona hospitals and researchers.
"What most people do not realize is the critical role that tissues play in researching the cause of disease and how to prevent and treat it," said Brent Gendleman, CEO and president of 5AM Solutions. "The ability to collect, manage and share standardized information about tissue samples is an absolute requirement for accelerating research and the development of new therapies."
5AM Solutions, which develops software solutions for life sciences organizations, will customize, extend and host caTissue Suite -- a, standards-driven, Web-based system for tissue inventory, tracking and annotation. caTissue Suite is an open-source product from the National Cancer Institute's cancer Biomedical Informatics Grid program. Tissue data will be structured in a standardized format allowing researchers to browse and query to determine which samples may be suitable for their needs. Consolidation of tissue data from several institutions will offer researchers access to a much larger catalog of samples than had been previously available.
"We believe that creation of this virtual tissue bank will offer significant advantages to the researchers in our state and ultimately the citizens of Arizona," said David Landrith, the ABRC's chairman. "With this virtual tissue bank, researchers will have improved visibility of what tissue samples are available as well as access to a much larger number of samples which is critical in supporting their studies. The tissue bank will help facilitate research and foster greater collaboration which will ultimately contribute to improving the health of our citizens."
The virtual nature of the bank will help protect the integrity of the tissues, as samples remain in the repositories of the participating institutions rather than being shipped to a central repository. Officials say this will minimize transport and handling of the samples until they are needed by researchers.
"An important factor that led us to partner with 5AM Solutions and adopt caTissue as the platform is our state's Native American population," said Dawn Schroeder, executive director of the ABRC. "Of the 22 Native American tribes in Arizona, many have religious beliefs that require any tissue samples they donate be tracked in such a way so that should the donor die, that tissue can be returned to the tribe."
"By customizing the caTissue platform, we will know where these samples are, how much was used, what is left, and what can be returned to the tribe," said Schroeder. "The ability to do this is critical to enabling Native American participation in clinical studies as either a donor of tissue or as a human subject."
