About
Texas Heart Institute provides biobanking and standardized patient sample receipt, processing, profiling and storage services to academic and independent research institutions within the U.S. and Canada through the Biorepository & Sample Profiling Core Laboratory (BPL).
The BPL is a 2,000 square foot, state-of-the-art, biosafety level-2 facility that received prestigious accreditation from the College of American Pathology (CAP) in 2015 and remains the only CAP Accredited Biorepository in the Texas Medical Center and the Southwest United States. The overall purpose of the BPL is the safe procurement, long term storage and sharing of de-identified patient biospecimens linked to demographics and clinical information.
It is also home to the Cardiovascular Cell Therapy Research Network (CCTRN) and Cardiothoracic Surgical Trials Network’s (CTSN) Biorepository and Cell Profiling Core (BRC), which is funded by the NIH National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute. Services provided include characterization of cells used in therapeutic applications, as well as patient responses, to help advance the safe, efficacious use of cell therapy in treating cardiovascular diseases. The BRC is under the
co-direction of Doris A. Taylor, PhD, FAHA, FACC and Adrian P. Gee, PhD,
MI Biol, who have more than 20 years’ experience in the field.
Core Capabilities
- Clinical Trial sample storage and profiling
- National and international biospecimen shipping and receipt
- Long term biospecimen storage and retrieval
- Cell Potency and colony forming assays
- Flow cytometry analyses of bone marrow blood and cultured cells
- Mononuclear cell isolation and storage
- Multiplex cytokine profiling
Focus Areas
The BPL provides Good Laboratory Practice (GLP) compliant, long-term storage of cells, plasma, and any human tissue samples or cells with emphasis on the cardiovascular and peripheral vascular patients. In addition, it conducts phenotypic and functional assessments of all of these products to link patient stem cell profiles or biomarkers with specific demographic patterns or medical conditions.
Stem cells and inflammatory markers in the blood, bone marrow and tissue of humans from around the world are analyzed routinely at THI—many of whom are receiving cell therapy for the treatment of cardiovascular disease. Analyses are performed to examine the relationships among patient demographics, co-morbidities, cell therapy outcomes and cell characteristics.
The knowledge generated by the BPL allows scientists to develop new ways to evaluate health status, including “biologic age,” and to predict patient outcomes in response to stem cell therapy and other regenerative medicines. This work could lead to the design of more effective cell therapies, the creation of blood tests to show a person’s likelihood of developing cardiovascular disease, or tests to predict the likelihood of responding to a treatment option (i.e., a drug, device or stem cell therapy). In addition, it may lead to new ways to reverse aging.
Sample Storage & Profiling
The functions of the BPL are to safely store patient samples and to consistently and reliably determine sample profiles using validated processes that comply with the principles of Good GLP. The lab has the current capacity to store up to 1 million bone marrow, blood, cell or tissue samples. Samples are stored with consent from the patients, and are de-identified and linked to co-morbidity and demographic data.
To apply to use BPL samples for your investigation, please contact the RMR office at rmr@texasheart.org.
