Biobanking for Precision Medicine: Preservation of peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs): challenges or opportunities

We invite you to attend the Biobanking for Precision Medicine seminar series. 

Participants must register for the webinar using WebEx prior to the meeting. 

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The seminar series, presented by NCI’s Biorepositories and Biospecimen Research Branch (BBRB), explores current topics in biobanking science, policy, and operations. As precision medicine continues to advance, high-quality biospecimens play a critical role in understanding complex diseases, supporting biomarker discovery, and uncovering mechanisms that drive resistance to therapies. This forward-looking series aims to increase awareness of best practices for collection of biospecimens and associated data, and to highlight opportunities to broaden research participation through biobanking. 

Our focus for 2026 is on biospecimen technologies to improve diagnostics, research and therapeutics and this talk will be part of the mini-series on this theme.

Meeting Information

Abstract

The development of cell-based immunotherapies to treat diseases has provided an important opportunity for new uses of PBMCs.  Specifically, PBMCs play an important role both as a source of cells for therapy as well as for monitoring patient response to the therapy. PBMCs are heterogeneous cell populations and different cell types have different responses to the freezing environment.  The challenges of freezing heterogenous cell populations will be discussed and linked to the molecular level responses of those different cell types.  An algorithm to improve preservation of mixed cell populations will be described.  Methods of preserving immune cells have relied largely on cryoprotective agents such as dimethylsulfoxide and new developments in the design of cryoprotective agents present an important opportunity to transform immune cell preservation.  Finally, practical hints for improving your preservation practice will be given.

Biography

Dr. Allison Hubel is a professor of Mechanical Engineering, the H.W. Sweatt Chair and director of the Technological Leadership Institute.  Hubel’s research involves understanding molecular mechanisms of damage during freezing and using that knowledge to develop effective preservation protocols for cells, in particular cells used therapeutically. Hubel pioneered the use of low temperature Raman spectroscopy for understanding molecular mechanisms of damage during freezing.  Hubel also pioneered the use of osmolytes for the preservation of cells and is a founder of Evia Bio, a start-up company commercializing that technology. Hubel is a past president of the Society of Cryobiology and Luyet Fellow of the society as well. She received the Outstanding Achievement in Biobanking Award from ISBER.  Hubel is author of the book, “Preservation of cells: a practical manual”.

Please note that, with our speakers’ authorization, NCI records presentations for the NIH and the general public. Please contact Veena Gopalakrishnan for questions about this event.

American Sign Language interpreting services are available upon request. If you are an individual with a disability who needs reasonable accommodations to participate in this event, please contact Veena Gopalakrishnan, via email, at veena.gopalakrishnan@nih.gov or 240-276-5123. Requests should be made at least five business days in advance to ensure interpreter availability.