NEW YORK (GenomeWeb News) – The Coriell Institute for Medical Research recently announced a $7.7 million contract extension from the National Institute for Neurological Disorders and Stroke to maintain the institute's biobank.
Separately, Cellular Dynamics International announced a service agreement for up to $6.3 million with Coriell related to a grant Coriell received from the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine earlier this year.
The contract extension from NINDS is for the institute's repository housing biospecimens for research into disease-relevant biomarkers for neurological disorders and neurodegenerative diseases, including Parkinson's disease and Huntington's disease.
The biorepository includes whole blood DNA, whole blood RNA, lymphoblastoid cell lines, fibroblasts, human induced pluripotent stem cells, cerebrospinal fluid, serum, plasma, and urine samples, as well as corresponding de-identified clinical data from individuals. Coriell said it has housed the repository since 2002.
The $7.7 million award is being distributed to three primary areas in the repository, the Camden, NJ-based institute said — whole blood collection for genetic studies; patient-derived fibroblast and iPSC carrying well-defined mutations or genetic variants; and the Biomarkers Discovery Collections for the individual assessment of disease prediction, susceptibility, diagnosis, prognosis, and treatment.
NINDS previously awarded Coriell $16.3 million to host the biorepository.
Separately, CDI said in a regulatory document that it and Coriell entered into a service agreement, under which CDI will perform certain services as a subcontractor on a $10 million grant to Coriell from CIRM to create and biobank iPSC lines.
At the time the CIRM grant to Coriell was announced, CIRM said it was also awarding CDI $16 million to create three iPSC lines for each of 3,000 diseased and healthy donors. CDI added that it was the primary subcontractor on Coriell's grant.
In its document filed with the US Securities and Exchange Commission on Friday, CDI said that it will expand and create up to 3,300 distribution cell banks (DCBs) from the 3,000 cell lines derived by CDI pursuant to its CIRM grant. CDI will also create the DCBs from up to 300 third-party pluripotent stem cell lines provided by California researchers, and perform quality control services "to ensure that the DCBs meet certain quality criteria."
Its work will take place over the course of four years for fees of up to about $6.3 million.