Preserving cells today for research tomorrow

Dr. Lewis Coriell’s pioneering techniques for characterizing, freezing, and storing cell cultures in liquid nitrogen constitute one of the greatest contributions to modern human research. Today, the Coriell Biobank is regarded as the most diverse collection of cell lines and DNA available to the international research community. In addition to these high-quality biospecimens, Coriell also maintains tissue, plasma, serum, urine, and cerebrospinal fluid.

Few organizations have the history of innovations in repository science that have been developed and implemented at Coriell. For more than 60 years, Coriell has set the standard in biobanking services, including the experimental design, collection, processing, distribution, cryogenic preservation, and information management of human biomaterials used in research. By developing and maintaining biorepositories as national and international resources for the study of human diseases, aging, and neurological disease, Coriell is committed to providing the scientific community with well-characterized, cell cultures and DNA preparations, annotated with rich phenotypic data.

The Coriell Biobank has allowed both Coriell scientists, and research investigators around the world, to advance research programs in genetics and cell biology. Since the first repository – a National Institutes of Health collection – was established at Coriell in 1964, hundreds of thousands of cell lines and DNA samples have been distributed to researchers in 65 countries; more than 7,000 peer-reviewed papers have been published citing over 12,000 biospecimens from the Coriell Biobank. Coriell's repositories provided support to the Human Genome Project, a worldwide 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 Biobank is ISO9001:2008 certified.

Key Services

• Establishment of public and private repositories and independent biobanks
• Banking, cryopreservation and fail-safe storage of cell lines, DNA, and other biomaterials
• Repository Information Management Systems
• Online catalogs with annotation of samples [Click to view catalogs]
• Collection and distribution systems, online tracking of all shipments
• Controlled-access to samples and associated data 
• Redundant backup generators for all storage facilities
• ISO9001:2008 certified

What is a Biobank?

Biobanks play a crucial role in biomedical research. The wide array of biospecimens including blood, saliva, plasma, and purified DNA maintained in biobanks can be described as libraries of the human organism. [ Learn More › ]

How Coriell Banks Cells

Cryopreservation is a process where cells or whole tissues are preserved by cooling to sub-zero temperatures. [ Learn More › ]

Biobank Technology

“Cool” Technology [ Learn More › ]

Biobank Catalog

The Coriell Cell Repositories provide essential research biomaterials to the scientific community by establishing, verifying, maintaining, and distributing cell cultures and DNA. [ Learn More › ]

Working with Coriell

Coriell offers more than 60 years of experience in the banking, cryopreservation, and fail-safe storage of cell lines, DNA, and other biomaterials. [ Learn More › ]