BELTSVILLE, MD and PORTLAND, ME--(Marketwire - October 19, 2010) - BioServe and the Maine Medical Center (MMC) today announced that MMC's Tissue Bank is joining the BioServe Network, which is fast becoming the richest resource of high-quality biomaterial in the world. Members of The BioServe Network today include Fox Chase Cancer Center, The Fairbanks Institute for Health Communities, the University of Massachusetts Medical School, Windber Research Institute, and now the MCC Tissue Bank. By accessing this 1.5 million and growing sample biorepository network, researchers can obtain the highest quality biomaterial from most any major disease category.
Founded in 2003 by Dr. Michael Jones, the Chair of the Department of Pathology at Maine Medical Center, the goal of the Maine Medical Center Tissue Bank is to accelerate the discovery of new and improved medical tests and treatments for patients by providing researchers access to specific tissue samples.
"Banking tissue is critical to advancing knowledge in the discipline of molecular genetics. This improves researchers' understanding of human disease, leading to better screening for early diagnosis and, ultimately, to the discovery and development of new treatments," said Dr. Paul Auclair, Medical Director of the MMC Tissue Bank. "By joining the BioServe Network we are able to get our high-quality and data-rich samples into the hands of many more scientists at institutions around the world."
"We welcome the MCC Tissue Bank to the BioServe Network," said Rama Modali, President of BioServe. "Whether validating a biomarker or a pre-clinical study of an experimental drug compound, human tissue is proving to be a significant accelerator of research. By accessing The BioServe Network we ensure that scientists are able to get the highest quality biosamples they need in their research."
All biosamples in the Network are acquired using rigorous IRB-approved collection protocols, complete with HIPAA-compliant informed consent parameters. This makes each sample eligible for study in a commercial research setting. The BioServe Network provides full disclosure on where and how samples were sourced, and that all biosamples are collected using the highest standard SOPs.
About Maine Medical Center
Maine Medical Center (MMC) is a complete health care resource for the people of Greater Portland and the entire state, as well as northern New England. Incorporated in 1864, MMC is the state's largest medical center, licensed for 637 beds and employing more than 6,000 people. MMC's unique role as both a community hospital and a referral center requires an unparalleled depth and breadth of services, including an active educational program and a world-class biomedical research center. As a nonprofit institution, Maine Medical Center provides nearly 23 percent of all the charity care delivered in Maine. MMC is a member of the MaineHealth system, a growing family of health care services in southern, central, and western Maine.
About BioServe
BioServe provides a comprehensive 'biomaterial to validated data' genomics services platform, helping researchers gain the pre-clinical data for breakthroughs in drug discovery, molecular diagnostics and pharmacogenomics. Utilizing BioServe's genomics services platform, researchers can identify genetic markers, validate drug targets and correlate clinical data with molecular data to accelerate the development of new and safer drugs. BioServe's services extend from nucleic acids processing, DNA synthesis, high throughput genotyping, genome wide-scans and gene expression analyses to ready-made large epidemiologically sound case-control studies of inflammatory disorders, endocrine disorders, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, hypertension, obesity and many cancers. BioServe's Global BioRepository provides researchers with a library of 600,000 human DNA, tissue and serum samples linked to detailed clinical and demographic data from 120,000 consented and anonymized patients from four continents.
For more information please visit www.bioserve.com or call 301-470-3362.
Contact Information:
Contacts:
Constantine Theodoropulos
Base Pair Communications
617-816-4637