In addition to conducting its own research in mechanisms of genetic disorders, cellular differentiation, and systems biology, Coriell Institute serves the scientific community by maintaining the world's largest biobanking facility. Construction of the cryogenic storage facility at Coriell Institute was due, in part, to an award from the National Center for Research Resources (NCRR), at the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

Coriell's biobank has distributed more than 160,000 cell lines in addition to over 50,000 DNA samples a year to researchers in sixty two nations. Staffed by experts in molecular biology, cytogenetics, cell biology, human genetics, molecular genetics, neurobiology, and systems biology, the biobanking facility plays a vital role in modern biomedical research. These repositories provided support to the Human Genome Project, a world-wide program to map the entire human genome, and to the International HapMap Project, a project providing an efficient tool to identify disease causing genes.

The Coriell Institute maintains contracts from the National Institutes of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS) and the National Institute of Aging (NIA) to establish and maintain what has become one of the largest cell repositories for the study of genetic and aging-related diseases. In 2001, Coriell was selected to build repositories for the Integrated Primate Biomaterials and Information Resource (IPBIR), supported by the National Science Foundation. A repository for samples from stroke, epilepsy and Parkinson disease was developed in 2002, supported by the National Institute of Neurological Diseases and Stroke (NINDS) and in 2006, a new repository for genetic research funded by the National Human Genome Research Institute, was established. In 2007, Coriell established a multimillion-dollar Genotyping and Microarray Center - a facility that processes up to 2,000 DNA or RNA samples per month. This high capacity facility consists of state of the art equipment and receives samples from laboratories around the world requesting genotyping, microarray and gene expression analysis.

Coriell's newest initiative - the Coriell Personalized Medicine Collaborative^© (formerly known as the Delaware Valley Personalized Medicine Project – puts the Institute at the forefront of personalized, or genome-informed, medicine. By combining a functioning biobank facility with modern microarray technology, Coriell has created the ideal environment for this innovative research. The Coriell Personalized Medicine Collaborative^© is a forward thinking, joint effort involving volunteers, physicians, scientists, ethicists and information technology experts whose goal is to better understand the coming impact of genome-informed medical practice and to guide its ethical, legal and responsible implementation.

The study will seek to discover presently unknown genes that elevate a person's risk of cancer, heart disease and other complex diseases, to understand why people often respond quite differently to treatments, and to explore how the resulting information can best be viewed and utilized by individuals and their physicians in a secure, user-friendly environment. All volunteers will control their genetic profiles and will be able to determine for themselves whether they wish the information to become part of their personal medical records in the future. Participants that wish to will be able to view medically relevant information about their genomic profiles through a secure web-browser-based system. A variety of educational material on genomics and medicine will also be provided through streaming video and downloads. This initiative aims to allow individuals to benefit from the advances that genome-informed medical practice will bring, while ensuring that patient privacy is vigorously protected.

The Coriell Institute for Medical Research currently occupies a five-story laboratory facility on the campus of the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, in Camden, and is adjacent to Cooper Hospital/University Medical Center. This location fosters partnerships for basic research, education, and medical care in southern New Jersey.