Translational Core

The central focus of the Translational Core is to create a Pulmonary Biorepository, a large-scale, extensive collection of human biological samples and matching clinical information from people with pulmonary diseases and/or unaffected controls. The objective of the Pulmonary Biorepository is to systematically collect, store, and distribute biospecimens for research dedicated to the improved understanding, care and treatment of patients with pulmonary diseases, with the ultimate goal of unlocking the genomic basis of disease to advance personalized pulmonary medicine.

The goal of the Pulmonary Repository will be accomplished by providing well-controlled, high-quality biological samples and relevant clinical data to researchers and aggregating the results from all of these studies so that they can be analyzed collectively, leading to strategies to diagnose and treatment in new and more effective ways, and breakthroughs in pulmonary medicine. We expect the knowledge gained and critical assays explored through the use of the Pulmonary Biorepository not only will provide valuable information for the scientific community, but also will facilitate the development of large-scale clinical investigations.

The Pulmonary Biorepository clinical data will be maintained in a secure, permission-restricted database. Banked biological specimens will be made available to researchers whose protocols have been approved by the IRB. Applications for the use of biological specimens and clinical data will be reviewed by the PTRC Committee members. Once approved, the specimens and clinical information will be distributed to researchers with no identifying subject information attached. It is also requested that laboratory results from samples obtained from the PTRC Pulmonary Biorepository be returned for entry into the PTRC database for use by other researchers so that assays will not be done in duplicate by other researchers. Illustrated below in Figure 3 is the infrastructure of the Pulmonary Biorepository providing a bridge between emerging molecular information and clinical information and enhancing the sharing of research resources.

Services

• Assisting with development of the infrastructure required to address common informatics needs
• Creating and managing HIPAA compliant databases
• Implementing software and web-based applications
• Assisting with the selection and use of data analysis tools
• Providing well-controlled, high-quality human biological specimens and relevant de-identified clinical data

To utilize Translational Core services, submit a PTRC Service Support Request.