Design and applications of the National Institute of Standards and Technology's (NIST's) environmental specimen banking programs

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) environmental specimen banking system consists of two environmental specimen banks (ESBs): the National Biomonitoring Specimen Bank established in 1979, and the Marine Environmental Specimen Bank established in 2002. Both facilities were specifically designed to store environmental specimens over long periods of time (50-100 years) and in such a way that future researchers could use these specimens to answer questions regarding trends in newly recognized environmental contaminants and verification of past analytical results. The NIST environmental banking system maintains collections of human liver specimens, human blood serum and blood spots, human diet samples, marine sediments, fish tissues, mussels, oysters, marine mammal tissues, and bird eggs and feathers collected as part of several monitoring and research programs supported by the U.S. Government. The NIST environmental banking system emphasizes: (1) carefully designed (and published) collection and banking procedures, (2) cryogenic storage to ensure sample stability, (3) high efficiency particulate air (HEPA)-filtered clean air conditions in the sample preparation and freezer rooms, (4) cryogenic homogenization systems for sample preparation, (5) computerized sample inventory and tracking system, (6) computerized security and monitoring systems, and (7) redundancy to minimize sample loss due to equipment or system failure. The NIST ESBs provide a resource of research specimens that are used to address questions regarding temporal and geographic trends in environmental contamination (including documentation of newly recognized contaminants), changes in ecosystem structure and function, genetic separation of populations of animals, and the health status of marine animals.