FSHD Cell Lines at the NIGMS Coriell Cell Research Repositories

Coriell Cell Repositories

The Coriell Institute for Medical Research, founded in 1953, is an internationally known not-for-profit, basic biomedical research institution. The Institute's founder, Lewis L. Coriell, M.D., Ph.D., played a major role in bringing the Salk polio vaccine to the public by using cell cultures to study human viral diseases.

In addition to conducting its own research in mechanisms of genetic disorders, cellular differentiation, and systems biology, Coriell Institute serves the scientific community by maintaining the world's largest biobanking facility. Construction of the cryogenic storage facility at Coriell Institute was due, in part, to an award from the National Center for Research Resources (NCRR), at the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

ImageCoriell’s biobank has distributed more than 160,000 cell lines in addition to over 50,000 DNA samples a year to researchers in sixty two nations. Staffed by experts in molecular biology, cytogenetics, cell biology, human genetics, molecular genetics, neurobiology, and systems biology, the biobanking facility plays a vital role in modern biomedical research. These repositories provided support to the Human Genome Project, a world-wide program to map the entire human genome, and to the International HapMap Project, a project providing an efficient tool to identify disease causing genes.

The Coriell Institute maintains contracts from the National Institutes of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS) and the National Institute of Aging (NIA) to establish and maintain what has become one of the largest cell repositories for the study of genetic and aging-related diseases. In 2001, Coriell was selected to build repositories for the Integrated Primate Biomaterials and Information Resource (IPBIR), supported by the National Science Foundation. A repository for samples from stroke, epilepsy and Parkinson disease was developed in 2002, supported by the National Institute of Neurological Diseases and Stroke (NINDS) and in 2006, a new repository for genetic research funded by the National Human Genome Research Institute, was established. ImageIn 2007, Coriell established a multimillion-dollar Genotyping and Microarray Center - a facility that processes up to 2,000 DNA or RNA samples per month. This high capacity facility consists of state of the art equipment and receives samples from laboratories around the world requesting genotyping and microarray analysis. [Source: internet page: “Coriell Institute for Medical Research – About Coriell.”]  

For more information on submitting samples to and obtaining samples from the Coriell Institute for Medical Research, please click HERE.

FSHD Cell Lines @ Coriell Cell Repositories

The FSH Society and the Coriell Cell Repositories in Camden, New Jersey have been working together to bring cell lines from FSHD families into the National Institute for General Medical Sciences Human Genetic Cell Repository. The FSH Society recruits FSHD patients and family members to donate tissue and cells

The intention is to establish a resource of FSHD materials open to researchers worldwide for a reasonable cost.  Researchers can be assured of the quality of the cell lines and DNA from the NIGMS Collection which Coriell initiated at the invitation of the NIH.  All cells are free of microbial contamination, including mycoplasma, and have been assigned a microsatellite identity profile.  All members of any submitted family are verified by Coriell for relationship before they are included in the collection. Coriell therefore supplies validated, uncontaminated cell cultures to established researchers who can be certain that the cells they receive are the cells they ordered.  The extensive quality control that Coriell uses to assess isolated DNA includes pulse field gel electrophoresis and long range PCR.  Finally, a clinical profile of each affected family member from the FSHD collection will be provided in the electronic catalog.

The scientific staff at Coriell has been greatly helped by the FSH Society in acquiring this important resource for the NIGMS Collection.  All of us hope that the materials will be useful in helping define the molecular basis of FSHD.

For a listing of cell lines and products available for FSHD research, please click HERE.