Photo Courtesy of Dr. David Harris

Cell-Enriched Tissue is placed in a specially designed cryobag for long-term storage in liquid nitrogen.

Photo Courtesy Dr. David Harris

Stem Cells Cryopreserved in Vials for Future Use

Photo Courtesy of UA

Dr. David Harris, executive director of the new Arizona Health Sciences Center Biorepository

The University of Arizona has many labs and biological samples scattered about it’s campuses, often delaying and disorganizing samples.

A new facility aims to fix that.

UA announced it will build the Arizona Health Sciences Center Biorepository. A biorepository is like a bank of biological samples for research, with private and public access. Dr. David Harris of UA describes its purpose.

“To collect, process and bank and then later make available human clinical samples along with all of the information that goes along with that," he said.

Harris was appointed to establish and lead the project. He says not only will samples come to the facility, but staff will go out and get them.

“We’ll have others who come in and they’ll have blood taken for blood work or other types of body fluids and tissues to be made available for research purposes" said Harris. "And then there will be other efforts where we will identify and collect from populations of interest that are unique to the southwest.”          

Samples are preserved through refrigeration, cryogenic freezing and even digitalization. Harris hopes to consolidate, catalog and mainstream processing of samples across campuses to improve access and expedite research.