NIA Clinical Core Laboratory and Biorepository

Josephine Egan, MD, Chief

Giovanna Fantoni, Ph.D., Faculty Head

CCLB supports clinical investigation by assisting with those aspects of experimental design that deal with acquiring laboratory data and, more recently, their interpretation. CCLB also facilitates research from individual NIA investigators that require selected clinical research-quality assays. The CCLB processes, labels, catalogs, and stores clinical research samples in the Biorepository, and distributes them to research laboratories around the world, in accordance with College of American Pathology guidelines and current human subject regulatory guidelines. Working in close collaboration with the Manager of CRC, the CCLB has implemented new procedures to decrease the time required for sample retrieval, which now occurs within days. CCLB also provides a dependable service for DNA/RNA extraction of clinical specimens. Additional laboratory services provided by the Diabetes Section, CCLB and the CRC are: (1) Simoa HD- X Analyzer™: a bead-based technology; flexible, robust, and ultra-sensitive immunoassay platform for measuring up to 10-plex biomarkers in diverse matrices, (2) ELISA and RIAs of various hormones (insulin, C-peptide, adiponectin, leptin, growth hormone, testosterone), cytokines (CRP, IL-6, TNFs, and their receptors), (3) Glucose determination from oral glucose tolerance testing (OGTT) on all BLSA subjects and insulin tolerance testing (ITT) in translational studies, (4) Olink (Explore 3072): an innovative proteomic platform for protein biomarker discovery and protein analysis, based on Proximity Extension Assay (PEA) technology, using minimal volumes of serum, plasma, or almost any other type of biological sample.

Portfolio/Research Areas

• Core Processing Lab
• DNA/RNA Lab
• YSI Glucose Lab
• Biomaker discovery
• Biorepository

Team

• Charisma Burrows, Biologist
• Nat Doegen, Technician
• Cole Douglass, Technician
• Mohamad Hariri, Biologist
• Mona Patel, Biologist
• Nader Shehadeh, Biologist
• Wesley Wilson, Biologist