Biorepository Portal Toolkit

Biorepository Portal Toolkit integrates and manages clinical, specimen, and genomic data for research biorepositories while enforcing patient privacy protections.

Key Features:

• Electronic Honest Broker (eHB) and Biorepository Portal (BRP): Open-source components that enable data integration and patient privacy protection under OCR and HIPAA standards.
• Automated De-identification: Automatic de-identification of specimen-associated clinical and genomic data to maintain privacy across workflows.
• Modular System Integration: A modular architecture that supports asynchronous association of data and specimens and scalable integration across systems.
• Rich Annotation: Detailed annotation of biospecimens with longitudinal clinical data and support for multi-institutional repositories via REDCap integration.
• EMR Integration: Incorporation of Electronic Medical Record systems to augment clinical data associated with specimens.
• Genomic Data Annotation: Domain-specific annotation of genomic data linked to biospecimens.
• Application Hooks: Support for application hooks at the specimen level to integrate with analytic software and specimen-level experiments.

Scientific Applications:

• Multi-institutional biobanking: Integrates specimens and data across eight participating institutions and has been used to manage over 30,000 accessioned specimens, more than 4,000 subject records, and 23 unique protocols/cohorts.
• Longitudinal clinical-genomic studies: Enables annotation and linkage of biospecimens with longitudinal clinical data and genomic data through REDCap and EMR integration.
• Genomic and tissue research projects: Facilitates collaborative advanced genomic and tissue research via specimen-level experiments and integration with analytic software.

Methodology:

The system employs a modular system integration approach implemented by the open-source Electronic Honest Broker (eHB) and Biorepository Portal (BRP), using automated de-identification, asynchronous association of data and specimens, integration with REDCap and EMR systems, and application hooks for integration with analytic software.