Human Reproductive Biospecimen Repository
The Reproductive Biospecimen Respository is a non-commercial, NIH-sponsored core research resource of the University of Hawaii’s RMATRIX initiative, created to facilitate reduction in health disparities through enabling researcher access to clinical, genetic, translational, and public health information arising from the integration of clinical data and biological samples. As a regional resource, this has evolved to be one of the largest research tissue repositories serving the Pacific region; further, as a perinatal resource, this repository is one of the only repositories of placenta, maternal, and cord blood inclusive of Pacific populations of sufficient sample size to support research with Hawaii’s ethnic groups. Seamlessly integrated with routine hospital labor and delivery procedures, the repository obtains informed consent from women post-partum to donate their placenta, umbilical cord, and excess cord and maternal blood (routinely collected for care purposes). Upon receiving informed consent from participating women, an abstract of Electronic Medical Record (EMR) information is electronically downloaded and appended to biospecimen samples. Participant information is deidentified and biospecimens are processed (DNA/RNA extracted, plasma/ serum frozen, placenta processed) and stored in the Biorespository at the John A. Burns School of Medicine (JABSOM) with medical record abstractions housed on secured servers. Only researchers with IRB-approved protocols can request access to biospecimens and associated clinical data. Requests are additionally screened through a Scientific and Ethical Review before approval to specific samples is given. To date, more than 9,250 women-child pairs are contained within HiBR and approximately 3,000 specimens have been released to researchers to date.
The clinical database that integrates with the biospecimen repository was developed as a Relational Database Management System (RDBMS). Presently, the maternal database tables contain nearly 400 variables for more than 8,500 women-infant pairs, with the accompanying infant data tables containing more than 80 variables.
The Reproductive Biospecimen Repository is approved by the Western Institutional Review Board (WIRB Study Number 1107593), and is funded by a grant from National Institutes of Health - National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities, awarded to Dr. J. Hedges (RMATRIX - 3U54MD007584-03S1)
