Efficiently Maintaining a National Resource of Historical and Contemporary Biological Collections: The NHLBI Biorepository Model.

Introduction: Reducing costs by improving storage efficiency has been a focus of the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) Biologic Specimen Repository (Biorepository) and Biologic Specimen and Data Repositories Information Coordinating Center (BioLINCC) programs for several years.

Methods: Study specimen profiles were compiled using the BioLINCC collection catalog. Cost assessments and calculations on the return on investments to consolidate or reduce a collection, were developed and implemented.