Banking on the Last Gift: Cornell's Signature Program of Postmortem Tissue Procurement

Abstract

High-quality, well-annotated, healthy tissue specimens are crucial to the success of basic and translational research, but often difficult to procure. Postmortem (PM) tissue collections provide the opportunity to collect these healthy biospecimens. PM procurement programs led by biobanks can further contribute by providing researchers with rare biospecimens collected with short postmortem intervals (PMI) in controlled environments. To support biomedical and translational research, the Cornell Veterinary Biobank (CVB), an ISO 20387 accredited core resource at the Cornell University College of Veterinary Medicine, has performed PM tissue collections from research and privately owned animals since 2013. The CVB PM collection team, consisting of a board-certified veterinary pathologist, a licensed veterinary technician collection specialist, and a data capture specialist, performs rapid tissue collections during controlled warm necropsies, with an accepted PMI of ≤2 hours and a target PMI of ≤1 hour. A retrospective analysis of PM collections between 2013 and 2020 was completed, consisting of 4077 aliquots of 1582 biospecimens from 69 donors (48 canine, 16 feline, and 5 equine). An average of 22.93 biospecimens per donor were collected (range: 1-49). The average PMI for standard collections was 43.48 ± 2.30 minutes, starting on average 20.81 ± 1.61 minutes after time of death. Thus far, the CVB has a favorable utilization rate, with 414 aliquots (10.15%) from 350 specimens (20.12%) and 45 animals (65.22%) distributed to researchers. The success of the CVB PM tissue biobanking program, collecting high-quality biospecimens with short PMIs, was due to support from veterinary pathologists, the competence of CVB personnel, and the continuous evolution of methods within a quality management system. Improvement of PM tissue collection programs in biobanks, with standardized practices for all processes and specialized personnel, can enhance the quality and increase utilization of its biospecimens and associated data.

Keywords: biobanking; necropsy; postmortem; postmortem interval; research autopsy; tissue.

FIG. 1.

Number of aliquots per collected specimen by preservation method and year. A total of 2429 flash-frozen aliquots, 945 formalin-fixed aliquots, 646 RNAlater-preserved aliquots, and 57 aliquots preserved by other methods were collected. Data are mean ± SEM. Means without common letters within a preservation method significantly differ (p < 0.05). SEM, standard error of the mean.

FIG. 2.

Categorization of postmortem collections based on PMI records. PMI, postmortem interval.

FIG. 3.

PMIs of preserved aliquots by species and year for (A) standard collections and (B) delayed collections. Data are mean ± SEM. Means without common letters within a species significantly differ (p < 0.05).