Community Project Funding/Congressionally Directed Spending - Construction - Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation 825 NE 13th Street Oklahoma City, OK. 73104 Joel Guthridge, Ph.D. Phone: 405-271-4987 Fax: 405-271-7063 Email: guthridgej@omrf.org www.omrf.org Requested grant program funds: HRSA-23-117 - PKG00279964 Community Project Funding / Congressionally Directed Spending (CPF/CDS): Facilities and/or Equipment (“Construction”) Projects Department of Health and Human Services Health Resources and Services Administration Project Abstract Summary: This project is for the modernization and expansion of the OMRF Oklahoma National Biorepository. The existing Biorepository serves as a national resource, providing secure, monitored, optimized cryostorage of tissue and blood samples at -20, -80 and -174 degrees below Celsius which preserves patient and healthy control samples for very long periods of time in ways that are useful for current and emerging research applications. In collaboration with scientists throughout Oklahoma and the US, the OMRF Biorepository contains more than 2,500,000 samples and is growing at more than 100,000 samples per year. Large ongoing collaborations span from characterizing optimal anthrax vaccination responses in US military personnel to characterizing blood markers of autoimmune disease in Oklahoma tribal members. We also serve as the national biorepository for numerous NIH/FNIH funded programs, such as the Autoimmunity Center of Excellence, Accelerating Medicine Partnership in Autoimmune and Immune-Mediated Diseases, Rheumatic Disease Research Cores Center, and Cooperative Centers for Human Immunology projects, as well as for numerous NIH, pharma and investigator-initiated clinical trials, small biotech companies, and other smaller programs. Robotic equipment is requested to optimize deposit and withdrawal of samples from the walk-in -80 freezer (one of the three largest in the nation), improving efficiency, enhancing personnel safety, minimizing energy consumption, and enabling transport of samples without inadvertently damaging samples minimally warmed by personnel handling. The requested investment includes $2 million towards this $2.743 million system which includes $100,000 in associated renovation costs. These investments will be leveraged by the ongoing grant and contract support of Biorepository personnel and institutional commitments for equipment service agreements. The Biorepository expansion would provide access to other Oklahoma entities, both institutions and tribal nations, to additional Department of Defense, VA Medical Center, NIH, FNIH and pharma partnerships to expand quality science-related jobs and expand clinical research advances within, and outside, Oklahoma.
