Elite non-progressors. Affected mothers (to study both mother and infants). Patients with T1D. Healthy control children (to properly age-match). This is a critical resource and knowledge gap and has been traditionally difficult to achieve. There was consensus on a need to begin building a ‘Gold Standard’ Sample Repository immediately, where samples would be collected prospectively through the living biobank effort. This would

allow for later selleck validation of an integrated pipeline of biomarker assays and allow sharing of samples for parallel analysis with multiple approaches. The cohort linked with this effort would thus be a ‘validation’ cohort. It was noted that the design of this resource should be protocol-driven, with appropriate equipment and procedures to collect the samples. Participants with background in industry settings suggested that the development of less complex assays and protocols to stabilize samples soon after collection should be paramount here. The repository would not need to be in a single physical location, and some assays could be performed by centralized laboratories to reduce variability; however, it would be helpful to export these assays to other laboratories for a comprehensive analysis. this website An effective strategy would be to create a collection of serum/plasma

samples for non-cell-based assays, and a collection of frozen peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) for non-live-cell-based assays from the same samples following rigorous standardized protocols [39]. Finally, all data generated could link to a centralized database (see next section) to allow for merging of data from different groups. Highly relevant to the Gold Standard Repository discussion

are efforts in place with the n-POD. There is already a system in place in this network for tissue/sample processing, archiving and efficient distribution to investigators. It was noted that n-POD has begun instituting working groups that study, collaboratively, samples from the same patients Tangeritin with a multitude of approaches. Importantly, the design of the approach is discussed collectively, whereby critical details are worked out that allow for maximizing co-ordination and the potential for discovery; for example, co-ordinating tissue sections allows for examinations of multiple parameters by different investigators on the same islets (using serial sections). Results are shared within the groups in real time to guide study progression further and incorporate changes or developments. Finally, n-POD offers the opportunity to correlate emerging biomarkers with pathology in the pancreas (for example, markers of β cell stress, mass, etc.) and a number of ongoing n-POD projects are generating data on these aspects at this time [40]. A central, shared database for the Gold Standard-type biomarker samples was deemed critical to make real progress in the field of T1D.