NEW YORK (GenomeWeb News) – The Coriell Institute for Medical Research is launching a biobank on the West Coast that will house induced pluripotent stem cell lines, and is using a $10 million grant from the California Institute of Regenerative Medicine to fund the facility.
Coriell, based in Camden, NJ, said on Thursday it is leasing a renovated 1,000-square-foot space at the Buck Institute for Research on Aging in Novato, Calif., to house the biobanking facility.
The institute said its biobank in California will house the world's largest collection of iPS cell lines. Currently, Coriell is host to 83 such lines, but it plans for the satellite biobank in California to expand its capacity to a total of 9,000 lines.
CIRM, an independent state-supported stem cell research funding agency, awarded the $10 million to Coriell in early 2013, alongside a $16 million award to Cellular Dynamics of Madison, Wis., which will create iPS cell lines for 3,000 healthy and diseased donors.
Under the terms of the grant, Coriell will establish the biorepository, which will manage, track, store, and distribute the iPS cell lines that CDI generates, which will represent a wide range of disease areas.
Coriell said it plans to begin accepting and processing samples at the new facility today.