Blog
Specimen Spotlight: ‘Matched Sets’ of Biospecimens Give Researchers Deep Insights
August 15, 2019
A disease is an abnormal condition, and to fully understand it, you need to compare abnormal biology against the normal. That’s the concept behind the matched sets of human biospecimens that we provide to researchers around the world.
Mixed News From the Alzheimer’s Research Front
August 8, 2019
Alzheimer’s disease remains stubbornly resistant to cures, though some progress is being made, especially on the diagnostic side. “We don’t have a lot of positive news these days,” Martin Tolar, CEO of Alzheon, told STAT for a story on last month’s Alzheimer’s Association International Conference in Los Angeles. “But I do believe there’s a lot […]
Precision Medicine Has A Long Way to Go: A Need for Patient and Biospecimen Data
August 1, 2019
A human biospecimen is a potential font of biological data—data that when aggregated in enormous volumes and crunched by artificial intelligence drives the development of precision medicine. By analyzing genetic profiles of patients and tumors, and by matching mutations to targeted drugs, precision medicine is halting or reversing cancer…in a small fraction of cases.
Precision Medicine Depends on Patient and Research Diversity
July 25, 2019
As medical researchers steadily amass knowledge of the human genome, there’s a stubborn blind spot: Most genomic research arises from subjects of white European descent. In 2,500 recently published human genomics papers reviewed in one recent study, only 19% of the participants were of non-European ancestry. The diversity deficit is a problem: At stake is […]
Five Questions with Healthcare Data Expert Dave John
July 18, 2019
Dave John joined iSpecimen last month as vice president of product management. Dave is a life sciences data and informatics expert with extensive experience developing solutions for genomics, translational medicine, clinical trials and electronic health records. He will help shape future capabilities of the iSpecimen Marketplace. 1. You are a data expert. How does data […]
Human Biofluids: Fueling Liquid Biopsies for Non-Invasive Cancer Detection
July 11, 2019
Biofluids – including blood, plasma, saliva, urine and even cheek swabs – can tell us a lot about a person’s health, which is why patients are routinely asked to provide these samples in the lab for testing. With a small amount of blood, for example, complex testing and screening of its chemistry, enzymes, lipoproteins and […]
Learning from the Past: The Fight against Opioid Addiction
July 2, 2019
What makes one person able to take painkillers without incident while another becomes addicted, and a third overdoses and dies? New Jersey researchers are exploring these questions, using a first-of-its-kind biobank of brains and blood samples from opioid users. In a three-year, $4 million study, researchers and clinicians from the Coriell Institute for Medical […]
Six Questions with Emily Hubbard
Emily is director of site management and development at iSpecimen, where she develops relationships with organizations that want to share human biospecimens with researchers on the iSpecimen Marketplace. 1. Where do the human biofluids, tissues and cells available on the iSpecimen Marketplace come from? The specimens and data available on the iSpecimen Marketplace come from […]
Transforming human biospecimen procurement to help advance R&D and change lives
June 13, 2019
Although biobanks around the world have since amassed millions of human biospecimens, and valuable insights have been extracted from them, the biospecimen procurement challenge is holding firm. Recently, iSpecimen launched a survey of its own, recasting several questions similar to those included in the aforementioned OBBR survey, to take a pulse on potential improvements related to the availability of quality specimens.
Five Questions with Jill Mullan
June 6, 2019
Learn more about our Chief Operating Officer, Jill Mullan.
Previous |
- © 2019 iSpecimen, Inc.
- All rights reserved.
