Establishing Automated Cryopreservation System for Biospecimen Storage

Biobanking has been playing an increasingly essential role in biomedical research, growing from simple biospecimen repositories to large complex infrastructure-based systems. With the emergence of omics-based technologies and the ever-increasing demand of biospecimens, there is a recent surge in the number of

biorepositories. Consequently, biorepositories are undergoing modernization by implementing state-of-the-art features of sample acquisition, quality control, storage and preservation, and analysis of disease-specific biomarkers, supplemented with well-annotated demographics and clinical/biological data, with the goal of

precision medicine outcomes. The Texas Heart Institute (THI)’s College of American Pathologists-accredited and US Food and Drug Administration- and International Society for Biological and Environmental Repositories -compliant Biorepository and Biospecimen Profiling Core Laboratory (THI-BRC) has a large liquid nitrogen (LN2)

cryopreservation system for long-term preservation of biospecimens. As a shared resource facility, THI-BRC is providing valuable service, such as sample (mainly cardiovascular) collection, quality-control, processing, storage and preservation, analysis, and inventory maintenance, to internal THI investigators and collaborators

throughout the nation, supporting various federal/state/nongovernment-funded basic science and translational research projects and clinical trials. Given the increasing need of large numbers of high-quality samples by our investigators and collaborators, particular attention is needed for sample acquisition, preparation, preservation,

retrieval, and inventory management, which can be met by installing an automated cryopreservation workstation. This project will involve installation of the BioStore Cryo III automated cryopreservation system in THI-BRC and its integration into our biorepository current practices, including the development of equipment-specific standard

operating procedures (Aim 1), and training THI-BRC personnel in the use and maintenance of this automated cryopreservation system and advertising to the research community the availability of this modernized storage system with increased sample storage capabilities and quality control (Aim 2). Importantly, the proposed system

does not require any changes to the current infrastructure. Automated cryopreservation will be implemented to varying degrees at various stages of our biorepository operations to improve sample access, cost, and throughput, offering both quantitative and substantial benefits to the workflow, such as integrated sample

traceability, secure storage, increased retrieval speed, and sample preservation. The operation workflow in our biorepository will be standardized and controlled while reducing the time of rack exposure outside the LN2 freezer temperature. Along with mitigating temperature fluctuation of not-intended-to-be-thawed biospecimens, thereby

maintaining structural integrity and functional attributes of the biospecimens, the automated cryopreservation system will overcome time-consuming manual processes, improve the efficiency of workflow, and benefit THI’s internal and external investigators’ basic and translational research initiatives on cardiovascular health.