Almost six years ago, the state of Arizona created a Bioscience Roadmap-an ambitious, long-term investment plan to establish the state as a globally competitive player in the bioscience sector. After embarking on the Roadmap, it became clear that access to quality tissue samples would be essential in fulfilling the requirements of a translational research center; scarcity, quality and availability of tissue samples in the state threatened to derail Arizona's vision. Clearly, something had to be done about the issue of tissue.
To address these challenges, the Arizona Biomedical Research Commission (ABRC) and 5AM Solutions recently announced a collaboration to provide the state with its first virtual tissue bank-powered by caBIG®. It is anticipated that as many as 500,000 samples will be made available to the research community through this program over the course of three years.
"As most researchers know, it can take years to develop a sufficient sample size," explains Brent Gendleman, CEO of 5AM Solutions, a Reston, VA-based company that develops software to address data, research, and workflow needs in the life sciences. The company will develop and customize caTissue-the caBIG® biorepository tool for biospecimen inventory management, tracking, and annotation-for this project. "Using a virtual bank, samples can remain in the care of the collecting institute, rather than risk being compromised through transport to a central site. Retaining the quality of specimens coupled with increasing the visibility of those specimens are two ways we believe that we can provide researchers with access to a large inventory of high quality specimens."
The creation of the virtual tissue bank will alleviate some of the state's most vexing problems with regard to tissue collection, storage, annotation and use. The tissue bank will provide a single, consolidated view of tissue samples stored in repositories in a number of Arizona hospitals and research facilities. The tissue bank will be enabled by caTissue, which 5AM Solutions will customize to meet the particular needs of participating institutes. Tissue data will be structured in a standardized format, allowing researchers to easily browse and query the virtual collection of samples.
According to Gendleman, caTissue offered several advantages over other solutions. The caTissue solution is open-source, which alleviated any concerns about vendor-bias. Using an open-source solution meant that the "success of the program was not contingent on the continued presence of any service provider, including 5AM," Gendleman explains. "That's not the case with many proprietary solutions on the market that wed clients to consultants for the entire duration of the implementation."
Because it is open-source, caTissue also offered ABRC and 5AM the structural flexibility they needed to customize the software for the unique conditions of the tissue bank. caTissue will be centrally hosted by 5AM, alleviating the need for local hosting, but the centralized solution must account for the individual tissue collection processes already in place at each participating institutions. Gendleman says that the caBIG® system is perfect for such customization.
This flexibility was an essential component for the Arizona research enterprise in its efforts to work more closely with the Native American population. For many Native Americans, religious beliefs require their body be buried whole. If a tissue sample has been donated for research, there must be a way to return the donated tissue to the tribe so that it may be buried with the body. Additional customization of caTissue makes it possible to easily track samples to determine how much tissue was used, what portion of the sample remains, and what portion can be returned for burial.
The implementation of caTissue began in early March 2009 and expectations are that the virtual bank will launch in the third quarter of 2009. At the launch, tissue data will be available through the public site, along with a protocol for distribution. The first phase of the project will address data integration at one site, examining the need for new features, and determining how to best modify existing ones. New features will ensure a researcher's ability to query data and submit research protocols for virtual peer review. During the second phase, it is expected that four additional sites will join.
The ARBC will continue to oversee the virtual bank after the implementation concludes. The impact of these samples on science, as well as state economics, will be an investment to watch.
