title: Best Practice BioBanking of Human Heart Tissue.
abstract: This review provides a guide to researchers who wish to establish a biobank. It also gives practical advice to investigators seeking access to samples of healthy or diseased human hearts. We begin with a brief history of the Sydney Heart Bank (SHB) from when it began in 1989, including the pivotal role played by the late Victor Chang. We discuss our standard operating procedures for tissue collection which include cryopreservation and the quality assurance needed to maintain the long-term molecular and cellular integrity of the samples. The SHB now contains about 16,000 heart samples derived from over 450 patients who underwent isotopic heart transplant procedures and from over 100 healthy organ donors. These enable us to provide samples from a wide range of categories of heart failure. So far, we have delivered heart samples to more than 50 laboratories over two decades, and we answer their most frequently asked questions. Other SHB services include the development of tissue microarrays (TMA). These enable end users to perform preliminary examinations of the expression and localisation of target molecules in diseased or aging donor hearts, all in a single section of the TMA. Finally, the processes involved in managing tissue requests from external users and logistics considerations for the shipment of human tissue are discussed in detail.
authors.affiliation: Bosch Institute, Discipline of Anatomy & Histology (F13), Sydney Heart Bank, University of Sydney, Sydney 2006, Australia.
authors.forename: Sean
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Lal
authors.affiliation: Bosch Institute, Discipline of Anatomy & Histology (F13), Sydney Heart Bank, University of Sydney, Sydney 2006, Australia.
authors.forename: Amy
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Li
authors.affiliation: Bosch Institute, Discipline of Anatomy & Histology (F13), Sydney Heart Bank, University of Sydney, Sydney 2006, Australia.
authors.forename: David
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Allen
authors.affiliation: University of California Davis, School of Veterinary Medicine, Department of Molecular Bioscience, 1089 Veterinary Medicine Drive, Davis, CA 95616 USA.
authors.forename: Paul D
authors.initials: PD
authors.lastname: Allen
authors.affiliation: Baird Institute, Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, Missenden Road, Camperdown, Australia.
authors.forename: Paul
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Bannon
authors.affiliation: 70 Araluen Drive, Killcare 2357, Australia.
authors.forename: Tim
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Cartmill
authors.affiliation: University of California San Francisco, Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics, 16 & 3 Streets, San Francisco 94117, USA.
authors.forename: Roger
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Cooke
authors.affiliation: Heart Transplant Unit, Xavier 4, St Vincent's Hospital, Victoria Street, Darlinghurst 2010, Australia.
authors.forename: Alan
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Farnsworth
authors.affiliation: Heart Transplant Unit, Xavier 4, St Vincent's Hospital, Victoria Street, Darlinghurst 2010, Australia.
authors.forename: Anne
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Keogh
authors.affiliation: Bosch Institute, Discipline of Anatomy & Histology (F13), Sydney Heart Bank, University of Sydney, Sydney 2006, Australia.
authors.forename: Cristobal
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Dos Remedios