Providing biosamples to take research from bench to bedside
North East Innovation Lab - part of Newcastle Hospitals
Working with industry, universities and the NHS to accelerate the development of next generation diagnostic technologies
By Dr Donna Nile, senior scientist and biobank manager
Biobanks are considered essential facilities for translating biomedical research into practice, driving precision medicine to improve global healthcare.
In the last year Newcastle Hospitals Biobank recruited around 700 patients to donate samples and released over 1000 samples, supporting 40 research projects with the NHS, academics and industry.
New discoveries, innovations and diagnostic tests are essential to ensuring doctors and nurses have the most optimal tools to enable the rapid detection of disease, and to help shape the most effective personalised and targeted treatment for patients.
Our biobank has been providing solid tissue for research - which would largely be discarded as surplus for diagnostic need - since 2015.
This year we have expanded our services to give access to a wider range of both tissue and liquid sample types. This includes multiple types of samples across infectious disease, autoimmune disorders, serology (blood), and multiple oncology specimens.
We’ve also strengthened how we collect samples prospectively for clients with closer working with our teams and department in the hospitals.
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Providing access to high quality, well characterised clinical samples does come with its challenges and we work within the many guidelines and regulations to ensure our samples are stored correctly and that they are released and used for the intended purposes.
Our governance framework means that all requests are processed in line with full biobank ethics.
Much of our work wouldn’t be possible without the patients who donate their samples, they are a precious gift that we don’t take for granted.?
Donated samples and their associated data are carefully catalogued to maintain anonymity and tractability.
We believe the expansion of the biobank’s activity will allow us to support a wider range of projects enabling our partners to continue to advance the diagnosis and treatment of conditions, enabling better patient outcomes.