BRAIN AND TISSUE BANKING
In 2015, the NDRD Brain and Tissue Bank was established at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, under the direction of the NDRD Program, headed by Dr. Maria Escolar. Dr. Julia Kofler is the head pathologist and director of the Alzheimer’s Bank at University of Pittsburgh where Krabbe brain and tissue samples are housed and processed for research projects.
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The Brain and Tissue Bank is currently expanding from handling Krabbe samples, to other leukodystrophies in order to advance the research and scientific findings for these diseases.
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Partners For Krabbe Research supports the NDRD Brain and Tissue Bank through funding and support of the program. P4KR also funds the coordination of the tissue donations so that there are no financial obligations for a family who wishes to donate their loved one’s tissues and brain.
Dr. Julia Kofler
In 2012, Dr Kofler became the Director of Neuropathology of the Alzheimer’s disease research center, where she oversees the banking, diagnostic evaluation, and annotation of donated brains and spinal cords and manages the distribution of neurodegenerative brain tissue samples to interested local, national and international researchers. The brain bank at the University of Pittsburgh is in existence for over 30 years now and has collected 1600 cases, including Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias, Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, Parkinson’s disease, other movement disorders, and traumatic brain injury cases. In 2015 the brain bank was expanded to include pediatric leukodystrophies, other neurodegenerative and storage disorders, with a focus on Krabbe disease.
Pictured is Anne Rugari, Consultant for the NDRD Brain and Tissue Bank, Dr. Kofler, and staff members of the NDRD Brain and Tissue Bank at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center.
Anne Rugari getting a first hand look at research in the NDRD Brain and Tissue Lab.
Dr. Kofler and technician working on research in the NDRD Brain and Tissue Biorepository lab.
Samples of tissues kept on microscopic slides for research.
Additional storage of brain and tissue samples used for research.
