Tissue and DNA Collection (Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History)

The museum’s genetic resource collections began more than 40 years ago as curator-driven research material. Over time, we realized that dispersed collections are vulnerable to equipment failures and sample mismanagement or loss. Therefore, we began an organized effort to centralize these collections, first within some research departments, and then throughout the museum.
In 2010 NMNH constructed a biorepository, which began receiving collections in 2011. The current capacity is approximately 4.2 million 2 ml cryovials that are housed in 76 ultra-cold mechanical and liquid nitrogen freezers and a small number of refrigerators. All cold storage units are monitored constantly for performance.
NMNH uses a modified version of FreezerPro (Ruro.com) to maintain and track inventory. FreezerPro is connected via an Application Programming Interface (API) to KE EMu, the museum’s catalog system. EMu provides a limited form of the catalog information to allow easier identification of samples. Each vial is assigned a locally unique Biorepository Number by FreezerPro to facilitate a unified system for locating and identifying samples.
The collection includes insects, birds, terrestrial plants, marine and terrestrial invertebrates, algae, fish, reptiles, mammals, amphibians, bacteria and protozoans. Current strengths are in bird, marine and terrestrial mammal, and insect holdings, although significant projects have been initiated that will broaden and deepen the taxonomical representation as well as environments. Human tissues, commercial, and agricultural products are not a part of the collection. A complete inventory of all holdings is underway. The entire collection presently numbers more than 250,000 and could be twice that number. All these materials are available for use in genomic research, toxicology studies and environmental monitoring.

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