Gregorio Marañón houses a BioBank with 561 biological samples for promoting research.

-Thanks to the specificity of the preserved samples research customized can design

– contains hundreds of samples of diseases such as HIV, hypothyroidism, neonatal sepsis and bronchiolitis

Madrid, January 2012.- hospital Gregorio Marañón has a BioBank that holds samples of blood, plasma, cellsDNA, cell pellet, washing broncoalveolar, serum, biopsies and fabrics with the aim of promoting and strengthening research in diseases such as bronchiolitis, neonatal sepsis, neutropenia associated with childhood cancer, hypothyroidism, rare diseases, HIV, HCV infection and coinfecciones. In total, this BioBank houses 561 biological samples.

The Mission of the BioBank is to contribute to the advancement of scientific knowledge and to meet this objective, ensures the receipt, processing and Cryopreservation of biological samples in conditions which ensure its usefulness for present and future research. Due to the specificity of the samples can be designed research tailored to the researchers to the advancement of knowledge of these diseases and biotechnology, which will promote the advancement of basic and clinical research, and is positively in the treatment of those affected.

In this way, any study that arises in the future, both derived from a new discovery in biotechnology or molecular in the clinical setting technology, can benefit from the existence of samples appropriate, promoting in this way the advance in research into these diseases and their possible clinical application.

The platform of the hospital BioBank is structured on two biobanks: one maternal and child health, and other HIV and co-infected. The mother and child consists of six nodes: respiratory, endocrine, neonatology, Pediatric Oncology, rare diseases and pediatric HIV. The respiratory node stored 104 samples of bronchiolitis; the Neonatology has 33 samples of suspected neonatal sepsis; Endocrinology has 394 samples of hypothyroidism; cancer and neutropenia 34 samples, and that of HIV is home to 273. Besides the samples belonging to these nodes, the maternal-infant BioBank has material to be used as controls in projects of research.

BioBank in single European HIV

For its part, the HIV BioBank, which has certified to the quality standard UNE – EN – ISO 9001: 2008, is unique in Europe specialized in processing and Cryopreservation of specimens taken from patients infected with this virus. Consists of 6 longitudinal prospective cohorts: cohort of adult patients infected with HIV, of not progresores long term, rapid progresores of recent or acute infection, cohort of liver transplantation in patients infected with HIV and cohort of HIV patients infected by vertical transmission.

They participate in the deposit of biological material 40 hospitals, distributed by all Spain, and are available from 14,000 samples from more than 6.881 patients. Since its inception, in 2004, this BioBank has yielded 5.797 samples to 29 research projects and has achieved great international projection through pan-European collaboration consortia, as EuroNanoMed, or due to the collaboration in platforms such as the European Society for Biopreservation and BioBanking, the Biobanking and Biomolecular Resources Research Infrastructure (BBMRI) and the International Society for Biological and Environmental Repositories.