Iowa NeuroBank Core

Mission

The Iowa NeuroBank Core (INBC) is dedicated to advancing research by enabling scientists to deepen their understanding of the intricate connections between human neuropathology and clinical manifestations through the databases and state-of-the-art molecular biology techniques. With each breakthrough in technology and the meticulously curated specimens from both patients and healthy controls, the Core is aimed to empower countless research endeavors in the complex neurological conditions and life science.

History

Funded by the Roy J. Carver Charitable Trust, the Iowa NeuroBank Core was planned in 2019 and established in 2020 as a wealth of resources for investigators utilizing human specimens and related technologies.

Thanks for all the additional philanthropic support to make this tremendously collaborative effort in the Iowa Neuroscience Institute and across Departments of Internal Medicine, Pathology, Neurology, Psychiatry, Neuroscience, and Pharmacology at the Carver College of Medicine, University of Iowa to advance human brain research and spatial biology advancement.

The Iowa NeuroBank Core has received incredible contribution of the patient donors and their families, as well as continuous federal funding from the Core users since its foundation.

Facilitating biobanking and research in cutting-edge biological fields by implementing cutting-edge technologies and centralized high-end instruments.

Iowa NeuroBank Core is known for capturing a spectrum of neuropathology in the human brains and housing technologies in a single core facility, which can help researchers from various fields to advance human brain research and personalized medicine:

"Neurotypical" (healthy controls): from fetus to adults over 98 years old
Alzheimer's disease (AD)
Frontotemporal dementia (FTD): Frontotemporal lobar degeneration (FTLD) families, including FTLD-tau, FTLD-TDP43, FTLD-UPS, FTLD-C9orf72, progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP)
Primary age-related tauopathy (PART)
Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS)
Huntington's disease (HD): juvenile-onset HD (JOHD), adult-onset Huntington's Disease (AOHD)
Multiple sclerosis (MS)
Multiple system atrophy (MSA)
Lewy body disease (LBD)
Parkinson's disease (PD)
Alcohol use disorder: alcoholism, alcohol dependence, alcohol dependence, alcoholism, alcohol addiction
SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19)
Schizophrenia
Epilepsy
Essential Tremor
Sudden Unexpected Death in Epilepsy (SUDEP)
1p36 deletion syndrome
Trisomy 21
Snyder-Robinson Syndrome
COL4A1 mutation
Hypoxic-ischemic injury
Diabetes: diabetes mellitus, type 1 (DM, type 1), diabetes mellitus type 2 (DM, type 2), steroid-induced diabetes, gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM)
Obesity
Cancer

As the leading global cause of disability, human brain disorders are a complex and multi-dimensional burden across generations. There is a critical gap for effective translation between discovery and therapeutics for human brain disorders due to the limited access to human brain specimens and cutting-edge technologies for challenging human specimens.