DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE - CONGRESSIONALLY DIRECTED MEDICAL RESEARCH PROGRAMS

Biorepositories – Biofluids and Cell Lines

Answer ALS iPS Cells & Motor Neurons ­– The Answer ALS Research Project entails creating up to 1,000 unique stem cell (iPSC) lines from ALS patient participants and healthy controls. Cedars-Sinai is leading the generation of the iPSCs and their derived motor neurons from patient blood samples collected across the multiple AnswerALS sites. For information on ordering iPSCs Lines, click here. Linked clinical, genetic, molecular, and biochemical data can be explored in the Answer ALS Data Portal, and used to select and order the corresponding cell lines.

CDC National ALS Registry BiorepositoryMultiple types of biosamples collected from persons with ALS who are enrolled in the National ALS Registry. For information on requesting data and/or samples, click here.

Cedars Sinai Induced Pluripotent Stem Cell Core – The Core is involved in many ALS projects, including Answer ALS and NeuroLINCS. They have a searchable online database of ALS cell lines, including ALS, PLS, non-ALS MND, and SMA lines.

CReATe Consortium Biorepository – Funded by the Rare Diseases Clinical Research Network (RDCRN) of NIH. Samples are collected by multiple Consortium sites from patients participating in the Phenotype-Genotype-Biomarker (PGB) protocol (NCT02327845). For biofluid collection SOPs, click here. Includes longitudinal samples from patients with ALS, ALS-FTD, PLS, PMA, HSP, and MSP.

NEALS Sample Repository – Biofluid samples collected from numerous ALS clinical trials and biofluid collection efforts of the Northeast ALS Consortium. Click to download a sample application form and description of samples (with SOPs for collections).

NeuroLINCS – NIH funded collaborative effort between research groups with expertise in iPSC technology, disease modeling, OMICS, and computational biology. The data page has links to multiple ALS and SMA iPSC-derived data sets as either raw (accessed via dbGaP or Chorus) or processed (accessed via LINCS Data Portal) transcriptomic, proteomic, epigenomic data collected by participating sites.

Target ALS Stem Cell Core – Lines are stored and disbursed by the NINDS Human Cell and Data Repository. For instructions on accessing the Target ALS Lines: click here.

UK MND Collections – Sample collections and data curated by the Motor Neuron Disease Association, including:

  • The DNA Bank:  >3,000 blood samples, stored at CIGMR (Centre for Integrated Genomic Medical Research) in Manchester, UK; also has clinical information (divided into a minimum and extended dataset) available to researchers.
  • The Cell Lines Collection: A sub set of the DNA Bank samples as lymphoblastoid cell lines and peripheral blood lymphocytes; enable the creation of induced Pluripotent Stem Cells (iPSCs).
  • The Epidemiology Collection: >200 patient and matched control surveys including extensive environmental and lifestyle data (both from self-report questionnaires and telephone interviews) as well as a subset of genomic DNA samples.