Please tell us a bit more about the Monasterium Laboratory biobank!
As we all know, the skin is the largest organ of the human body and it has many important and crucial functions except just having a decorative role. It acts as a protective barrier between the outside and the inside of the body. Therefore, it protects us from microbes, heat and water loss, UV radiation and helps to regulate the body temperature. Also, it permits the sensations of touch, heat and cold. To understand all these fundamental and crucial functions of the skin, we need to understand the basic principle of biology and pathology of the skin and its appendages like hair follicles.
With a vision to promote translational research in this area, we have developed and initiated our Monasterium Laboratory biobank, focusing on hair and skin research. So, our biobank is a systematic collection of skin and hair follicle tissue from different body locations, from people of different ages and ethnicities. We want to create a huge repository of hair and skin tissue from healthy volunteers and patients suffering from skin and hair follicle diseases to answer different research questions. I am glad to share that this project is quite unique in our region (Westphalia-Lippe, Germany), providing great collaborative opportunities for other researchers.
What is the purpose or scope of creating a hair and skin biobank?
Besides, to support our in-house hair and skin research, we also want to promote collaborative research with our partners by providing access to a high quality tissue collection system. Our biobank is highly organized and tissue samples are collected in a pseudonymized and controlled manner in line with the latest data protection regulations. Our main purpose of creating a hair and skin biobank is to drive and support collaborative research with other companies, or institutes. Thus, the biobank helps to develop various novel and innovative skin and hair disorder management solutions, which in the future should help many patients suffering from different skin and hair diseases.
Who can participate and donate samples to the biobank?
We already have a wide network of surgeons and specialists working in different hair and skin disease-related topics. However, when other researchers want to join and contribute tissues to our biobank, we take consideration of the local ethical regulations. Also, based on our project requirements on any specific diseases, we approach to other specialists working on that field requesting them for sample contribution in our biobank. Soon, we also encourage researchers from the whole EU (based on EU protection laws and regulations) to collaborate and build a strong repository of tissue collection of hair & skin.
How can other researchers utilize the services of the biobank?
We welcome other external researchers to utilize our biobank services to advance their hair & skin research. Anyone can ask for tissue samples by applying via the “sample request form” available on our website. Based on their project questions, clinical relevance, and requirements, our monthly biobank management committee evaluates external research projects and prioritizes the requests for the tissue usage.
How can the biobank help to facilitate and advance the clinical research in hair & skin diseases?
We mainly focus on pre-clinical research in hair and skin. However, as I mentioned that we also collect tissue samples from different patients suffering from different stages of disease progression and background (under high data protection rules), the collected samples are of great value. Using these samples, one can gain a deeper understanding of the underlying mechanisms to develop novel diagnostics and therapeutics applications. We also store these samples for a long time so that one could trace back the patient samples for answering additional questions in the future. Thus, I am very positive that the creation of the biobank is a great step towards advancing clinical research in hair & skin diseases.
Thanks, Dr. Edelkamp (COO & Team leader) for your time. Please do not hesistate to contact her at j.edelkamp@monasteriumlab.com if you have any further questions.
