Bio samples now being stored in Kannapolis

LabCorp has opened the Kannapolis biorepository, a high-tech storage facility for biological samples. Photo by Emily Ford

By Emily Ford

eford@salisburypost.com

KANNAPOLIS — Duke University's medical research study based at the N.C. Research Campus has moved its human biological samples to a high-tech storage facility in Kannapolis.

Laboratory Corp. of America has opened the 40,000-square-foot biorepository at U.S. 29 and Chipola Road. Burlington-based LabCorp and Duke are collaborating on the facility, where Duke will house more than 1 million samples collected from 50,000 Cabarrus County and Kannapolis residents who enroll in the MURDOCK Study.

The study, named for campus founder and Dole Food Co. Chairman David Murdock, previously shipped blood and urine samples to New Jersey for storage. The new biorepository cuts transport time, said Dr. Ashley Dunham, community health project leader for the study.

"That's when the integrity of samples is most at risk to be compromised," she said. "We want to minimize that time."

The biorepository is a key component of a joint venture between Duke and LabCorp to commercialize new biomarkers, or molecules found in the body that signal disease. Biomarkers also can show how well the body responds to treatment.

Called the Biomarker Factory, the venture is designed to turn newly discovered biomarkers into clinical tools. Physicians would use the tools to personalize medicine by determining how individual patients will respond to certain drugs, how a disease will progress and to evaluate biological processes that cause disease.

The Biomarker Factory was spearheaded by Victoria Christian, chief operating officer for the Duke Translational Research Institute, who first publicly mentioned the idea in 2008 as Duke's contribution to the Research Campus.

Duke is one of eight universities with a presence in the Kannapolis, where researchers at the $1.5 billion life sciences complex study health, nutrition and agriculture.

The collaboration between Duke and LabCorp relies on the university's ability to discover and validate biomarkers and the company's expertise in the development and commercialization of diagnostic and laboratory tools.

The biorepository provides researchers with access to samples in a controlled setting. LabCorp will store samples for academic centers, research organizations, health-care providers and biotechnology companies, in addition to Duke.

The company is leasing the building from Research Campus developer Castle & Cooke North Carolina.

So far, Duke has stored 95,000 samples, or 30 samples for every person enrolled in the MURDOCK Study, Dunham said. The samples are kept in 12 specialized freezers at minus 80 degrees. The facility has hundreds of freezers that meet a variety of state-of-the-art storage requirements.

The biorepository's extensive power back-up systems offer peace of mind, Dunham said.

"When Katrina hit New Orleans, researchers lost years and years of work due to power outages," she said. "When samples thaw, they are useless."

When announcing the facility, LabCorp said it planned to employ about two dozen people. It's not clear how many people currently work at the biorepository.

Facility manager Hannah Maynor said she is unable to speak to reporters. LabCorp's headquarters in Burlington did not respond to requests for an interview.