AIDS and Cancer Specimen Resource (ACSR)

The AIDS and Cancer Specimen Resource (ACSR) has four regional biorepositories (RBRs) in the United States and one in South Africa. The ACSR is funded by the National Cancer Institute (NCI) of the National Institutes of Health (United States) to support investigators studying HIV/AIDS and HIV/AIDS-associated malignancies. The ACSR inventory includes more than 450,000 annotated HIV-positive biospecimens from over 10,000 individuals and 100,000 HIV-negative controls from approximately 4,250 individuals, reflecting the pre-highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) and post-HAART era of the HIV epidemic, as well as selected geographic regions heavily impacted by this global pandemic. Funding statement: The U.S. NIH National Cancer Institute has funded the ACSR since 1994. The present award is UM1CA181255

A biobank to support HIV malignancy research for sub-Saharan Africa

CITATION: Schneider, J. W., et al. 2016. A biobank to support HIV malignancy research for sub-Saharan Africa. South African Medical Journal, 106(9):867-869, doi:10.7196/SAMJ.2016.v106i9.10891.The original publication is available at http://www.samj.org.zaSub-Saharan Africa has one of the highest incidences of infection with HIV globally, but more people in this region are living longer owing to increased access to antiretroviral therapy. However, along with increased care and treatment, this population is expected to have an increase in HIV-associated cancers, as is being seen in the USA and other developed countries. To support translational research in HIV-associated cancers, Stellenbosch University in Cape Town, South Africa, was funded to house the state-of-the-art AIDS and Cancer Specimen Resource Sub-Saharan Africa Regional Biorepository (SSA RBR) to proactively obtain, manage and process biospecimens and associated clinical data representing both AIDS-defining and non-AIDS-defining cancers for research. The SSA RBR furthermore functions as the biorepository for AIDS Malignancy Consortium sub-Saharan clinical trial activities in this region. Although the site had much experience with cryopreservation and storage of specimens, capacity building revolving around operations under International Society for Environmental and Biological Resources/National Cancer Institute best practices took place in such areas as custodianship v. ownership, data sharing and facilities management. The process from selection until launch took 14 months.http://www.samj.org.za/index.php/samj/article/view/10891Publisher's versio

AIDS and cancer specimen resource (ACSR)

The AIDS and Cancer Specimen Resource (ACSR) has four regional biorepositories (RBRs) in the United States and one in South Africa. The ACSR is funded by the National Cancer Institute (NCI) of the National Institutes of Health (United States) to support investigators studying HIV/AIDS and HIV/AIDS-associated malignancies. The ACSR inventory includes more than 450,000 annotated HIV-positive biospecimens from over 10,000 individuals and 100,000 HIV-negative controls from approximately 4,250 individuals, reflecting the pre-highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) and post-HAART era of the HIV epidemic, as well as selected geographic regions heavily impacted by this global pandemic

Shipment Impairs Lymphocyte Proliferative Responses to Microbial Antigens

Lymphocyte proliferation assays (LPAs) are widely used to assess T-lymphocyte function of patients with human immunodeficiency virus infection and other primary and secondary immunodeficiency disorders. Since these assays require expertise not readily available at all clinical sites, specimens may be shipped to central labs for testing. We conducted a large multicenter study to evaluate the effects of shipping on assay performance and found significant loss of LPA activity. This may lead to erroneous results for individual subjects and introduce bias into multicenter trials