Coriell Institute for Medical Research wins $7.7 million NINDS contract

Reviewed by James Ives, M.Psych. (Editor)Nov 21 2019

Coriell Institute for Medical Research has been awarded a $7.7 million contract by the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) focused on the study of nervous system disorders.

The five-year award will support the NINDS Human Genetics Resource Center, a collection of biological samples and corresponding demographic, clinical, and genetic data made available to qualified researchers around the world. This repository includes samples from subjects with various diseases – such as cerebrovascular disease, dystonia, epilepsy, motor neuron disease, parkinsonism, and Tourette Syndrome.

Home to the world's most diverse biobanks and a trusted global distributor of biological specimens, Coriell has been the contractor for the NINDS Human Genetic Resource Center since its inception in 2002.

The NINDS Human Genetics Resource Center has proven to be invaluable for researchers."

Laura Scheinfeldt, PhD, principal research scientist at Coriell and principal investigator of the collection

This collection offers tens of thousands of biospecimens representing several neurological disorders and population controls. Scientists investigating the genetic contribution to these maladies and developing diagnostic tools and treatments have access to these trusted biological materials through the resource.

This award will support ongoing sample processing, storage and distribution as well as expanding resource sub-collections, including cerebrovascular disease and dystonia, a disorder characterized by involuntary muscle movements. The contract also includes funding to continue to connect collection biospecimens to genomic data stored in the database of NIH Genotypes and Phenotypes, commonly known as dbGaP.

Coriell is home to several collections of biological samples owned by various NIH institutes. The National Institute of General Medical Sciences' Human Genetic Cell Repository, the National Institute on Aging's Aging Cell Repository, and the National Human Genome Research Institute's Sample Repository for Human Genetic Research also call Coriell home.