by Jennifer Kowalewski

In five years, the Appalachian Rural Health Institute’s (AHRI) Diabetes/Endocrine Diseases Biorepository could have blood samples from more than 5,000 persons — samples that will be used to further endocrine disease research in Southeastern Ohio and nationwide.

“The Diseases Biorepository will be one of the first biorepositories for diabetes and other endocrine diseases that has specific clinical information associated with it,” says Frank Schwartz, M.D., director of the ARHI Diabetes/Endocrine Center and an OU-COM associate professor of endocrinology.

“A major portion of the biorepository’s blood samples will be from a specific group of Appalachian people. The biorepository will allow the long-term storage of blood samples from individuals with different endocrine diseases at various stages. These samples will be available for Ohio University scientists and others to study.”

“It is the only biorepository that I know of that is dedicated to diabetes/
endocrine disease research in the state of Ohio,” says Dawn Ford, Ph.D., biorepository coordinator. One other in Ohio is dedicated to tissue sample research, says Ford.

Tuesday, Nov. 8, as part of ARHI’s monthly Diabetes Research Seminar series, Schwartz will give an update on the biorepository’s progress. Schwartz’s presentation will take place at 11:30 a.m. in Grosvenor West 111.

The biorepository itself consists of two ultra-low temperature freezers with a dedicated computer and bar-coding machines. After arrival, DNA, RNA and plasma components will be separated from the blood samples. These components are then divided into sub-samples. The freezers are for long-term storage of the separated blood samples; the computer maintains a specimen/
records database; and the bar-coding machines apply bar codes to the stored blood sub-samples.

These blood components will be refrigerated at -80° Celsius to keep them from degrading and remain in storage until needed. When researchers need samples, their requests must be approved before they receive them, Ford says.

Patients of University Medical Associates (UMA) may donate blood to help build up the biorepository. Donors will be asked to give a family disease history.

“I will pick up the blood samples donated through UMA,” says Ford. “The medical records of donors will be electronically transferred to the repository’s database. I won’t know who the donors are, as all personal identity information is encrypted.”

If necessary, donors can be identified by UMA. Ford is the only person who can request that a sample be identified.

By having a plethora of samples on hand from different patient donors, the biorepository will save researchers time by making it easier to find suitable subjects for their studies. Researchers also will have a larger sample base from which to choose. And in five or 10 years, researchers will be able to look at diseases at various stages of development. Through observing how a disease matures in the body, researchers will be better equipped to fight them.

“One of the big things is being able to link samples with clinical information,” Ford says. “We will have information, such as the age of the person or what they were presenting when they went to the clinic. We also will look at patients over a period of time. We will know how their blood chemistry changed.”

“There will be a three-step approval process for researchers who want to access samples from the biorepository,” says Ford. First, researchers must go to biorepository advisory board to have their research proposals reviewed and approved. Second, they must obtain approval from the University’s Institutional Review Board. Last, they also must attain approval from UMA.

“Right now we are working on (blood) separation protocols,” says Ford. “Possibly by Thanksgiving or early December we might be able to begin to collect samples.”

Until then Ford will continue working out protocols and quality control/quality assurance measures. Ford began at the biorepository in July.

Eventually the repository’s samples will head to Athens-based researchers or researchers across the country to help study endocrine diseases. Out of these collaborative efforts, it is hoped, new discoveries will be made to combat these diseases.

“Diabetes and endocrine diseases are genetically linked, and patients who have these conditions want to know what causes them and what can be done to protect other family members,” says Schwartz. “Although there may not likely be immediate benefits to donors, they know that they will be helping to further research into these diseases.”

There are, says Schwartz, animal models of many of these diseases, and it’s hoped that the biorepository will facilitate the building of human disease models that could be correlated with animal ones. This, he says, “will facilitate collaboration between clinical and basic science researchers at Ohio for a true ‘bench to bedside’” scheme of medical care.

“If this is successful, it will increase the University’s and OU-COM’s research capabilities and broaden our capacity for accepting more collaborative research proposals from other universities in the United States and from around the globe.”

The facility soon will have its own Web site, which will have information on its advisory board, the application process to obtain samples for research, a mission statement, a staff directory, links to participating partners and a link to the International Society of Biological and Environmental Repositories.

That Web site will be linked to from ARHI’s Web site, says Ford.