Research Resource for Human Organs and Tissues

PROJECT TITLE: HTORR/ NIAID High Priority HIV Human Biospecimen Recovery Program
PROJECT SUMMARY
The development of effective treatments or cures for a wide range of diseases requires translational studies that
are directly relevant to human pathophysiology. The use of human biospecimens address this need by providing
scientists with a direct experimental model for their studies. To address several complex issues facing HIV
research, including viral persistence, latency and reactivation as well as optimizing preservation methods for
human tissues, investigators require access to a unique resource that could provide rigorous and uniform
collection of human biospecimens from defined cohorts of HIV positive donors to yield consistent and
reproducible experimental results for inventive and groundbreaking studies. As a leading human tissue provider
for the biomedical research community, the National Disease Research Interchange (NDRI) is a 501(c)(3), not-
for-profit organization that remains at the forefront of coordinating biospecimen procurement to match the needs
of advancing scientific experimental methodologies, enabling cutting-edge research. For over 30 years, NDRI
has received NIH funding for the parent award to this administrative supplement, the Human Tissue and Organs
for Research Resource (HTORR) U42 Grant Number: U42OD011158. To address larger scale and more
complex projects in the field of HIV research that are beyond the scope of HTORR, the Administrative
Supplement for the HTORR/ NIAID High Priority HIV Human Biospecimen Recovery Program has enabled an
expansion of HTORR’s capabilities biospecimen collection to align with unmet or emerging needs in the field of
HIV research. Our current Program Year (PY) 4 efforts include providing rigorous, large scale, uniform collection
of human biospecimens from highly defined cohorts of HIV+ donors to optimize tissue preservation methods for
HIV studies and to study viral persistence, latency and reactivation. The goal of our PY5 proposal is to continue
developing and implementing this biospecimen collection program to provide ongoing support for high priority
HIV studies for NIAID. To accomplish this goal, NDRI will: 1) lead the development of complex (up to ~30 tissue
types per donor) and high priority recovery projects, 2) identify and authorize HIV+ donors from both NDRI’s TSS
and NIAID’s HIV+ donor referrals, 3) collect relevant HIV+ donor data from Tissue Source Sites (TSS) and donor
families, 4) coordinate standardized biospecimen procurement, processing, and preservation, and 5) distribute
all biospecimens to NIAID’s laboratory. In doing so, the biospecimen collection and preservation methods will
be optimized to support the generation of high-quality, reproducible data for NIAID’s HIV research objectives.
RELEVANCE
Improving treatment for HIV infected patients or finding a cure requires access to high-quality human
biospecimens that are suitable for analysis using the most challenging experimental techniques. This approach
provides scientists with a direct experimental model system to advance understanding of HIV prevention, cure,
co-morbidities, and therapeutic strategies. The overall objective of our Program Year 5 proposal is to continue
developing and implementing a highly specialized, ongoing human biospecimen collection program for NIAID’s
HIV research initiatives.

Grant Number: 3U42OD011158-35S1
NIH Institute/Center: NIH
Principal Investigator: Thomas Bell