NOVA Medical School launched the CHAIN Biobank on January 12th, which is a bank of human biological samples available to the entire scientific community for health research purposes.
This new infrastructure is a crucial tool for health research and innovation, offering a centralized repository of human biological samples such as blood and its derivatives, bone and urine, and associated clinical data. The biobank will allow for quality storage of collected samples and associated clinical data following legal, ethical, and technical guidelines to enable the reuse of samples with maximum quality. Thus, the NOVA Medical School biobank will create new opportunities and allow for the study of health determinants and mechanisms of disease, the discovery of new biomarkers, and the development of new therapies.
The main objective of this biobank is to be available to the entire national and international community, functioning as a repository with biological samples of all types (healthy, but also disease samples) that any health professional and researcher can use for research and innovation work, with a focus on the benefit of Global Health.
The CHAIN Biobank of the NOVA Medical School consists of a laboratory for sample reception and processing; a laboratory for samples with some suspicion of contamination; and a storage room with freezers for storing samples at -80°C. It currently has 41,452 samples from 11,751 participants.
“The CHAIN Biobank unites two fundamental pillars for the NOVA Medical School: on the one hand, the investment in Research that we have been doing over the years and, on the other hand, our active role in the Community. With this new space, we are certain that we can continue to contribute to improving the health of both the Portuguese and the global population, especially through the decisive role in the search for new therapies.” says Patrícia Calado, Vice-Dean for Research of NOVA Medical School.