Biobanking Services

Protocol Specific Banking

At UHN Biospecimen Services, we offer prospective protocol specific banking tailored to your research needs, including: patient eligibility screening, consenting, biospecimen collecting, biospecimen handling, biospecimen processing, clinical data annotation and long-term sample storage services and shipping.

Specimen Counter

Our biorepository is continuously growing in numbers of samples collected each day prepared to be fully utilized by both academic research and industry collaborators.

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Buffy Coat

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Plasma

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Serum

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Whole Blood

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PBMC

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Urine

Biospecimen Processing

UHN Biospecimen Services offers biospecimen processing services customized to your particular needs, while adhering to industry best practices and verified by our quality management system to warrant the highest quality of specimens and data, ready for long-term storage and/or use in research.

We offer processing of biofluids such as:

Whole Blood

  • Plasma
  • Serum
  • Buffy Coat

Collected based on study specific or research requirement.

PBMC

  • Peripheral blood mononuclear cells
  • Most abundant immune cells

Urine

  • Whole Urine
  • Processed Urine
  • Frozen Urine Cell Pellet

Tissue

  • TMA Construction
  • Laser Capture Microdissection
  • Quantitative image analysis
  • Formalin fixed paraffin embedded (FFPE) tissue

State-of-the-art Laboratory Equipment and Facilities

Our biofluids processing laboratory is equipped with state-of-the-art laboratory equipment and facilities which consist of temperature-controlled centrifuges, Bio-safety cabinets, chemical fume hoods, ultra-low-temperature freezers fitted with freezer alarm system and O2 sensor enabled cryo-storage facility.

Strictly Enforced Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs)

Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs), which complement the institutional SOPs, have been developed to standardize collection, labeling, handling, transportation, processing, storage, distribution and data management. The SOPs are strictly enforced and an educational and training program for our personnel is implemented to ensure uniformity in all biobanking aspects.

Quality Assurance Processes

Specimen quality assurance processes have been put in place to assess cell count and cell viability. Data quality assurance processes have also been implemented in order to ensure the accuracy and completeness of the data we store. Validation of our processes enables our stakeholders to have confidence in our sample quality and data accuracy, and give added credence and reproducibility to research results.

DNA / RNA Extraction

DNA and RNA extraction are essential in research, routine diagnostic and therapeutic decision-making, particularly in oncological and immunological research. Extraction and purification are also essential in determining the unique characteristics of DNA, including its size, shape and function. When conducted with good laboratory practices and quality control, it yields high quality genomic DNA/RNA that can be used for a range of oncological disease sites. UHN Biospecimen Services can produce single-tube extractions with high-quality nucleic acids customized for your study requirements.

Biospecimen Storage & Shipping

We offer both short and long-term storage as well as specialized shipping, tracking and documentation for stored biospecimens, both domestically and internationally.

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