Global HIV Vaccine Research Cryorepository-GHRC

The Global HIV Vaccine Research Cryorepository (GHRC) is an international consortium coordinated by the Fraunhofer Institute for Biomedical Engineering (Fraunhofer IBMT) and funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. It is one of the Centralized Service Facilities of the Collaboration for AIDS Vaccine Discovery (CAVD) whose goal is to discover and design a safe and effective preventive vaccine against HIV/AIDS by means of collaborative and comparative research, supported by the utilization of innovative concepts and new technologies.In this context, GHRC has established the first large-scale centralized biobank for low-temperature storage of HIV-1 related specimens and reagents where samples can be long-term cryopreserved under controlled low-temperature conditions and shared among the CAVD laboratories. GHRC develops novel procedures and helpful technology for optimized sample processing and cryopreservation of clinical specimens collected by CAVD and for the storage of relevant reagents. Key elements of the GHRC technology platform are new cryosubstrates with integrated non-volatile memory chips, the specimen knowledge and preparation workflow management system ChameleonLab, high precision and high throughput controlled-rate freezers integrated in cryoworkbenches, sample access towers shielding cryotanks from ambient air and an electronic cryotank infrastructure allowing accurate sample localization and selective data access even under cryogenic temperatures. To ease collaborative research, a web portal for online registration of HIV specimens has been established enhancing the GHRC central information and specimen administration database. Moreover, GHRC has proved to be well-suited for pseudotype virus stock production and has implemented an appropriate automated large-scale production system.