Biobanking during COVID-19: An academic institutional biorepository's experience

Statement of the Problem: The Houston Methodist Research Institute Biorepository is a centralized biorepository at the Houston Methodist Hospital System. The COVID-19 pandemic hit the biorepository with full force and forced it to rethink its operational priorities. The Biorepository had to pivot fast to cope with the inflow of the COVID-19 specimens while managing the additional ethical, safety and specimen handling guidelines associated with the everchanging COVID-19 landscape. The Biorepository's workload increased multi-fold with institutional mandate on collecting, processing and storing residual blood samples from all COVID-19 patients coming to the seven Houston Methodist hospital entities. Sample processing, storage and release for the urgent convalescent plasma therapy research study, as well as for the COVID-19 employee surveillance were also managed by the biorepository. The Biorepository was also releasing large number of processed samples on a regular, priority basis to the clinical lab for validation studies on diagnostic platforms and kits. A multitude of new COVID-19 related research studies and the upgrade of the Biorepository Information Management System, that had just got off the ground as COVID-19 stuck, were also handled. Proposed Solution: The biorepository deployed 5 temporary staff from the institutional labor pool to cope with the initial wave of COVID-19. The clinical lab staff came in to help when the temporary staff wasn't available. Staff worked after office hours and on weekends to complete the work. The Director and Manager worked on the bench at times to give a helping hand to the staff. Quick changes to the workflow were implemented. Lists to capture the influx of COVID-19 patients were generated with the help of the Pathology Informatics Group. The upgrade of the Biorepository Information Management System continued intermittently as and when COVID- 19 provided a temporary breather. Conclusion: The Biorepository was able to tackle the COVID-19 challenge all thanks to the extraordinary work performed by its permanent and temporary staff. The ongoing support provided by Pathology Informatics Group and Houston Methodist Research Institute IT Group helped the Biorepository immensely in navigating the sample accessioning and related IT challenges. Institutional Executives were very prompt in addressing the Biorepository's needs. The Biorepository's COVID- 19 collections are still ongoing as subsequent surges emerge.