12^th International Conference & Exhibition on Tissue Preservation, Life care and Biobanking (B2B & Networking) November 9-10, 2018 Atlanta, Georgia, USA

Stem cells contribute to innate healing and harbor a promising role for regenerative medicine. Stem cell banking through long-term storage of different stem cell platforms represents a fundamental source to preserve original features of stem cells for patient-specific clinical applications. Stem cell research and clinical translation constitute fundamental and indivisible modules catalyzed through biobanking activity, generating a return of investment.

Fertility preservation is the effort to help cancer patients retain their fertility, or ability to procreate. Research into how cancer affects reproductive health and preservation options are growing, sparked in part by the increase in the survival rate of cancer patients. The main methods of fertility preservation are ovarian protection by GnRH agonists, cryopreservation of ovarian tissue, eggs or sperm, or of embryos after in vitro fertilization. The patient may also choose to use egg or sperm from a donor by third party reproduction rather than having biological children.

Moving rapidly from science fiction to science fact, cryopreservation is an integral part of many research, development, and production processes in industry and academia. The preservation sciences have emerged as an interdisciplinary platform that incorporates the fundamentals of cell and molecular biology, and bioengineering, with the classic methodological approaches to freezing and drying living matter. Researchers and biotech companies must scramble to learn about, and adopt, the new preservation strategies that incorporate the classic and the new molecular-based approaches.

A Biorepository is a biological materials repository that collects, processes, stores, and distributes bio specimens to support future scientific investigation. Biorepositories can contain or manage specimens from animals, including humans, and many other living organisms. Vertebrates, invertebrates, arthropods, and other life-forms are just a few of the many classes of living organisms which can be studied by preserving and storing samples taken. The Biorepository assures the quality, and manages the accessibility and distribution/disposition of the bio specimens in its collection. There are a huge number of biorepositories in the United States, which shift broadly by size, the sort of biospecimen gathered, and reason. One of the biorepository's most elevated needs is ensuring the security and sacredness of individual and medicinal data. bio specimens are materials taken from the human body, for example, tissue, blood, plasma, and pee that can be utilized for growth determination and investigation. At the point when patients have a biopsy, surgery, or other methodology, regularly a little measure of the example evacuated can be put away and utilized for later research. Once these specimens have been legitimately prepared and put away they are known as human bio specimens. Specialists and scientists might break down biospecimen to search for signs of ailment in the contributor. Bio specimens can affirm whether a malady is available or truant in a specific patient; however they likewise give other data that might be valuable to the doctor or a specialist. Every example might contain DNA, proteins, and different particles essential for comprehension ailment movement.

The Cancer Human Biobank (caHUB) is a BBRB induced system that finishes specific biospecimen and data acquisitions to reinforce biospecimen science works out. The caHUB framework involves the going with sections Bio examples Source Sites (BSSs) are relationship, for instance, insightful remedial concentrates, quick after death examination centers, and organ securing affiliations, that get tireless consent, get cases, and watercraft them to one of different undertaking areas. The Comprehensive Bio examples Resource (CBR) is a consolidated site that hoards amassing and transportation packs, gets most bio samples from the BSSs for taking care of and limit, and water crafts bio examples from the BSSs to the get ready and examination workplaces. The CBR moreover makes H&E fragments from FFPE squares and conveys propelled photos of these regions. The Comprehensive Data Resource (CDR) is a concentrated data storeroom that secures patient and illustration data from BSSs and other undertaking areas that handle and examinations tests. The Pathology Resource Center (PRC) is an arrangement of board avowed pathologists who review H&E sections from caHUB assembled samples as a quality control measure moreover give particular bearing to caHUB Bio example's gatherings.

The Cancer Human Biobank Human Biobank (caHUB) is a Biospecimen Source Sites that collects human cancer tissue of donors with a variety of disorders, but also of non-diseased donors. This cancer tissue, together with an anonymized summary of a donor’s medical record, is sent to scientific researchers worldwide, with the ultimate aim of increasing our understanding of the human cancer and to develop therapies for treatment of cancer.

Although most living organisms are composed of large amounts of water, it is not inevitable that freezing these organisms results in ice-formation. Among amphibians and insects that can tolerate freezing, there is wide variation in the amount of freezing they can tolerate. Species of frogs can spend days or weeks "with as much as 65 percent of their total body water as ice". Some amphibians achieve their protection due to the glycerol manufactured by their livers. Glycerol is "antifreeze", it reduces ice formation and lowers freezing point. Glycerol (glycerin), like ethylene glycol (automobile anti-freeze) is cryoprotectants. The sugar glucose is also cryoprotectants — and arctic frogs have a special form of insulin that accelerates glucose release and absorption into cells as temperatures approach freezing. Cryoprotectants can make water harden like glass — with no crystal formation — a process called Vitrification. Freezing-damage to cells is due to the formation of ice-crystals. Entire organs can be solidified and stored at temperatures as low as -140° C. Scientists are working on ways to reduce the toxicity of the cryoprotectants used to make water vitrify to allow banking of organs for transplantation. At Alcor, we are optimistic that the toxicity that still does occur with vitrification of human organs will be reversible with future molecular repair technology.

Biorepositories provide a resource for researchers to increase understanding of complex diseases. Studies such as the Lung Genomics Research Consortium (LGRC), a two-year project launched in October 2009, are going a step further than standard biobanking practices and characterizing the samples with their molecular makeup. The molecular data can then be mined along with the clinical data. Led by National Jewish Health and funded by the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute, a division of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the LGRC project consists of five institutions, including Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. Collaborators in the project work with samples banked at the Lung Tissue Research Consortium (LTRC), which houses tissue samples and blood from lung disease sufferers, primarily chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), along with a rich set of clinical data from patients.

Tissue engineering along with regenerative medicine can be used to create ‘Scaffolds’ in the human body. These scaffolds are used to support organs and organ systems that may have been damaged after injury or disease. So what is tissue engineering? ‘Tissue engineering is the use of a combination of cells, engineering and materials methods, and suitable biochemical and physico-chemical factors to improve or replace biological functions’. This is most commonly achieved through the use of stem cells. Stem cells are unique types of cells that are undifferentiated. So the main focus of creating these constructs is to be able to safely deliver these stem cells, and create a structure that is physically and mechanically stable so that these stem cells can differentiate. Scaffolds are of great importance in clinical medicine. It is an upcoming field, and usually associated with conditions involving organ disease or failure. It is used to rebuild organs and return normal function.

 

Biobanking play a crucial role in biomedical research. The wide array of bio specimens (including blood, saliva, plasma, and purified DNA) maintained in biobanks can be described as libraries of the human organism. They are carefully characterized to determine the general and unique features of the continuous cell line and the absence or presence of contaminants, therefore establishing a fundamental understanding about the raw material from which the biological product is being derived and maintained. Biobanks catalog specimens using genetic and other traits, such as age, gender, blood type, and ethnicity. Some samples are also categorized according to environmental factors, such as whether the donor had been exposed to radiation, asbestos, or some other substance that can affect human genes.

Biomedical investigators require high quality human tissue to support their research; thus, an important aspect of the provision of tissues by biorepositories is the assurance of high quality and consistency of processing specimens. This is best accomplished by a quality management system (QMS). The basis of a QMS program designed to aid biorepositories that want to improve their operations. In 1983, the UAB Tissue Collection and Biobanking Facility (TCBF) introduced a QMS program focused on providing solid tissues to support a wide range of research; this QMS included a quality control examination of the specific specimens provided for research. Similarly, the Division of Laboratory Sciences at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) introduced a QMS program for their laboratory analyses, focused primarily on bodily fluids. The authors of this article bring together the experience of the QMS programs at these two sites to facilitate the development or improvement of quality management systems of a wide range of biorepositories.

Tissue engineering is emerging as a significant potential alternative or complementary solution, whereby tissue and organ failure is addressed by implanting natural, synthetic, or semisynthetic tissue and organ mimics that are fully functional from the start, or that grow into the required functionality. Initial efforts have focused on skin equivalents for treating burns, but an increasing number of tissue types are now being engineered, as well as biomaterials and scaffolds used as delivery systems. A variety of approaches are used to coax differentiated or undifferentiated cells, such as stem cells, into the desired cell type. Notable results include tissue-engineered bone, blood vessels, liver, muscle, and even nerve conduits. As a result of the medical and market potential, there is significant academic and corporate interest in this technology.

Biobanking is an essential tool to provide access to high quality human biomaterial for fundamental and translational research. Research for rare disorders benefits from the provision of human biomaterials through biobanks, and each human sample from a person with a rare disorder has a high value as it may hold the key to answer an important research question. Transnational cooperation in biobanking is an important catalyst to share limited resources and achieve optimal outcomes as in other areas of rare disorder research.

Ethical issues are commonly present in many aspects of Biobanking. The fact that Biobanks deal with human samples, invading an individual autonomy or limiting self-control, provokes a number of ethical issues. Who is actually competent to give informed consent and donate a sample? When individuals donate part of their body to a biobank, how is that human sample processed? Who is the owner of the sample? Who should decide how it should be used? Who has the right to know individual results of research? These and many more ethical dilemmas exist in the ethical framework of biobanks. With the recent rapid developments in biobanking, all of these issues are magnified with plenty of further new questions continuously arising. Ethical framework has been the most controversial issue in the domain of biobanking. Thus, it is not surprising that there is a substantial literature focusing on ethical dilemmas in biobanking, such as informed consent, privacy, protection, and returning of results to participants. For many years, researchers at CRB have provided constructive advice on how to deal with ethical aspects of research using human tissue material and personal data.

Due to the increased demands for high-quality biospecimens for biomedical research, the number of biobanks has increased worldwide. The utilization of biospecimens and its respective data from biobanks enables cost-effective and fast retrospective studies. At the same time, it enables collection of biospecimens for prospective studies with high-quality samples following standardized processes and work flows for handling, processing, and storage. Biospecimens, collected and stored based on standardized processes, enable reduction of sample quality-related bias in biomedical research.