NEW YORK — The Coriell Institute for Medical Research said on Friday that it has been awarded a five-year grant worth $9.2 million from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS) to continue maintaining the institute's biobank of genetic disease-linked cell lines and DNA samples.
The NIGMS Human Genetic Cell Repository holds and distributes about 11,800 unique cell lines and 6,400 DNA samples representing over 1,000 heritable diseases, according to Camden, New Jersey-based Coriell. It also contains 54 human induced pluripotent stem cell lines representing a variety of disease states, chromosomal abnormalities, and samples from apparently healthy individuals from diverse ethnic backgrounds.
"Coriell has been the trusted steward of the NIGMS Human Genetic Cell Repository since its inception at Coriell in 1972, and we are eager to continue this collaboration into the future," Coriell Chief Biobanking Officer Nahid Turan said in a statement. "In the almost five decades of this collection's existence, it has become a critical part of the global research infrastructure, offering scientists around the world one-of-a-kind biological samples they can trust to enable their research."