Biobanking at CIGMR

The biobanking arm of CIGMR is called CIGMR Biobank, we are a 13 strong team of academics, project managers, IT specialists and sample processing technicians.  We are based in the Stopford Building at the University of Manchester.  Our aim is to enable translational medicine by supporting projects with a requirement to collect, store and distribute biological samples and associated data for research purposes.  CIGMR Biobank has been active for over ten years and during this time we have successfully facilitated a large number of biobanking projects such as:

The projects we have enabled have produced a wide range of scientific publications which can be viewed on the Publications pages within the CIGMR Biobank website. Our labs use state of the art robotics in order to enable automated sample processing and storage and we run a fully customised sample tracking database (LIMS) and employ dual site storage facilities to guard against catastrophic loss of sample.

CIGMR Biobank was the first academic biobank to gain ISO9001:2008 certification in 2005;  Quality Management is at the core of our operations and we are actively pursuing a policy of quality improvement within the department.

CIGMR Biobank works with collaborators nationally and internationally in the following ways:

  • Enabling access to biological samples and clinical data, see 'Sample and Data Access' for a list of samples currently available
  • Supporting academics who are seeking to make new collections of biological samples and associated data with funding applications
  • Providing project management during sample and data collection as well as sample storage and distribution to the research community
  • Designing, building and distributing bespoke sample collection kits for a wide variety of sample types e.g. Saliva, RNA, DNA, plasma, tissue etc
  • Providing long term storage facilities for a variety of biological sample types
  • Providing and managing access procedures for samples and data
  • Distributing samples nationally and internationally for research purposes

Performing sample processing laboratory techniques in our ISO9001:2008 certified labs in Stopford Building e.g. automated DNA extraction from whole blood or saliva, plasma and serum separation from whole blood.

CIGMR Biobank is a member of P3G (Public Population Projects in Genomics), ISBER (International Society for Biological and Environmental Repositories) and CCB (Confederation of Cancer Biobanks).

For all enquires please contact Kate Dixon