HUNT Biosciences Signs Collaboration Agreement with Tissue Solutions

The collaboration aims to promote the value of the unique HUNT Study, which for the past 25 years has gathered blood samples from the general population of the Nord-Trøndelag region in mid-Norway together with detailed phonotype and environmental data.

According to Per Foss, CEO of HUNT: “We believe that the unique combination of biomedical and phenotypic information that has been collected over the past 25 years from a general population rather than a specific disease cohort can help accelerate biomarker discovery and validation.  Furthermore, working from a general population base gives core strengths in a whole range of key public health areas such as cancer, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, obstructive lung disease, osteoporosis and mental health. Already HUNT samples are widely used in academic research, and through this collaboration with Tissue Solutions we aim to significantly increase our pharma and diagnostic industry customer base.

Tissue Solutions Ltd recently won Young Scottish Life Science Company of the Year and according to CEO Dr Anne Cooreman, their success in rapidly building up a high quality international client list has been based on being able to offer a single point to access the entire range of human biological materials for research and development needs: “We are delighted with this agreement with HUNT Biosciences which is a natural extension to our services. Having access to population biobank samples means for example that we can provide samples that predate onset of disease. We are sure both existing and new customers will share our excitement.”

This agreement follows the recent Norwegian report referring to HUNT Biosciences as a role model for a proposed future national Norwegian Biobank Company. Foss also believes this collaboration with Tissue Solutions and Scotland could provide a major focal point for high quality, ethical tissue provision on the worldwide stage.

Notes to editors
The HUNT Study and its associated biobank represent a regional cohort of more than 100.000 individuals and is part of CONOR, the Cohort of Norway. In addition to professionally stored genetic samples, the HUNT Study comprises more than 3000 clinical variables  including 800 environmental exposure variables collected since the early 1980s. This unique resource operates as a satellite to the Norwegian University of Science and Technology ( NTNU) in Trondheim and is situated in a new, specially designed National Biobank building with state-of-the-art infrastructure, storing samples from 250 000 CONOR participants. The Norwegian authorities have earned the population’s trust through a well-established framework and rigorous routines for protection of personal information. Based on this trust and the unique system of unambiguous personal identification numbers, the HUNT Study offers integration of biobank data with other national registries on clinical information and medical end-points, as well as genealogical and family linkage information.

Genetics:
DNA from about 250.000 individuals (CONOR) and 15.000 RNA samples
Immortalized cells for cell line production from 50.000 individuals
Genetic expression analysis from tumor biopsies can also be provided from selected HUNT participants

Phenotype:
Precise information on health status and extensive lifestyle data
Cross-linkage to local clinical endpoints and national registries:
“Medical Birth”. “Cause of Death”, Prescription Registry“, “Cancer Registry” and other validated clinical endpoint registries on myocardial infarction, venous tromboembolism, stroke and factures based on local hospital records

Environment:
Coverage of more than 800 exposure variables
Prospective information due to long observation period.

The HUNT Study is also an integrated part of three EU projects in FP 6 and FP 7 and its role in EU funded medical research is expected to be further extended and deepened in the Framework 7 programs. HUNT cooperates actively with a number of European biobanks, and the CONOR consortium signed a bilateral national agreement with UK Biobank in 2005, including the development of integrated solutions for data management and automated sample handling.