The Salford Biorepository Facility is located in purpose built laboratories in the Clinical Sciences Building at Salford Royal.
It provides support and advice to clinicians and lead researchers to facilitate the collection of biomaterial for clinical trials and ethically approved biomedical research by safely processing, storing and distributing thousands of human samples each year from consenting patients and volunteers. It is also integral to the effective running of the Northern Care Alliance Research Collection (NCARC) tissue bank.
The facility operates within Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) and Human Tissue Authority (HTA) standards.
It runs a bank of ultra-low temperature freezers that operate at -75°C to ensure samples are optimally preserved for future biomedical research. All equipment is serviced and calibrated annually, and each freezer has its temperature automatically logged and recorded every 30 minutes to a central database that can be accessed remotely. To further safeguard samples, the lockable freezers are located across several laboratories in air-conditioned rooms, with additional back-up space available. Experienced staff provide customised training and day to day support to all laboratory users to ensure efficient running and continued regulatory compliance.