WRI in Bloom

 As I think about Windber Research Institute (WRI) in bloom this spring, I am reminded of the renewal and regrowth we experienced in 2005.  As our staff and research expanded, we outgrew the facility originally built for ten to fifteen people.

St. Mary's Church

In August 2005, Windber Research Institute moved to the location on the former site of St. Mary's Hungarian Roman Catholic Church. In an effort to honor the support from the Windber community, the arch of St. Mary's Church was preserved and incorporated into the design of the new facility.

Just as WRI has grown over the years, the tissue bank continues to blossom as well.  We have gone from our first batch of samples in 2001 when electronic records were scant, to our current status where electronic records abound…shipping manifests, databases, checklists, reports, automated monitoring, QA… we have it covered.  It is amazing to look back at where we were in our infancy and see how we have grown into a mature biorepository in 2012.  

Windber Research Institute

Just as spring brings new growth after the winter hibernation, exciting opportunities are upon us!  A most encouraging development is our new partnership with the U.S. Military Cancer Institute to handle their biobanking needs.  We recently expanded our tissue bank adding additional space and freezers to accommodate frozen tissue specimens from the U.S. Military Cancer Institute’s research program.  This contract serves as a vote of confidence in our leading edge facility and biobanking team and we are proud to be working with them.

Maintaining the Freezers 24/7

Preserving the integrity of our precious samples is a top priority in our tissue bank.  We recognize that if it were not for the generosity of the patients, this great resource would not exist.  To this end, daily checks are performed to ensure that everything is operating smoothly and within acceptable limits.

WRI’s Tissue Bank consists of ten liquid nitrogen freezers and five negative 80 freezers which are continuously monitored by an automated system. If a temperature falls out of range, the system will call staff from a designated call list so the necessary action can be taken.

In addition to the automated system, we also perform manual checks as a backup method.  Every day, two staff members perform AM and PM checks of the tissue bank.  The checklist includes room temperatures, freezer temperatures, nitrogen levels, oxygen levels and verification that freezers are locked.  During non-business hours, security staff walks through the facility and performs the same checks every four hours.

All checklists are double checked at the beginning of every week to look for possible trending patterns.  This process can help to give us a heads up of a possible problem in the future.  One such occasion was when we noticed liquid nitrogen levels rising instead of falling on one of the freezers (this parameter is not recorded on the automated system).  We did some troubleshooting and ended up needing to do a total thaw of the freezer to clear out an obstruction that was leading to the erroneous readings.

Maintaining the tissue bank is a 24 hour 7 day a week job, and every day many steps are taken to ensure the quality and integrity of our samples remain high.