High-quality human biological samples are critical for advancing drug discovery, diagnostics, and precision medicine. In this webinar, three experts discuss best practices for ensuring specimen integrity, leveraging biobanking for oncology breakthroughs, and enriching clinical data for translational research.

From Clinic to Discovery: Maximizing Standard-of-Care Biospecimens

Meredith Osborn
Associate Director Product Management, Discovery Life Sciences

Precision medicine breakthroughs rely on uncovering and exploring novel biomarkers and mechanisms of action. Yet the reality is many patients aren’t getting tested for established biomarkers—let alone emerging research candidates. Discovery Life Sciences will discuss the limitations of standard of care data and share proven strategies for delivering research-ready samples enriched with meaningful data.

Key Determinants for Specimen Quality: Best practices for accurate results

Cathie Miller, PhD
Senior Director of Product Management, BioIVT

Advancements in drug discovery and diagnostics hinge on the quality of human biological specimens (HBS), as poor-quality specimens can undermine research validity, inflate costs, and delay progress. High-quality biospecimens are essential for reliable studies, clinical trials, and innovative treatments, with rigorous quality control, ethical compliance, and robust biobanking frameworks being non-negotiable. Providers like BioIVT exemplify industry standards through stringent quality measures, regulatory adherence, and diverse donor networks, ensuring specimens meet research needs. For example, BioIVT supports Antibody-Drug Conjugate (ADC) development by offering Ki67 staining on biospecimens, providing pre-stained blocks and custom screening projects to accelerate research. By partnering with trusted providers, researchers can mitigate risks, uphold scientific integrity, and accelerate breakthroughs in areas like liquid biopsy and targeted therapies.

How High-Quality Biospecimens Drive Oncology Breakthroughs

Katharina Krohn
Senior Director, Global Biobanks, Crown Bioscience

This presentation, led by Katharina Krohn, dives into the critical role of biospecimens in enabling clinically relevant oncology research. It covers best practices in biospecimen collection, storage, and quality assurance, including ISO-certified protocols and Crown Bioscience’s global biobank capabilities. We discuss how superior sample quality directly impacts research outcomes, showcasing real-world data from internal studies—such as the long-term stability of plasma cfDNA—and quantifying the financial benefits of low failure rates. This webinar will help researchers reduce variability, improve reproducibility, and unlock deeper biological insights for precision medicine.

Key Topics Include:

  • Understand what data to expect from standard of care procedures and records, including a reality check on the progress of clinical adoption of personalized medicine.
  • Explore strategic approaches used by Discovery Life Sciences to fill the data gap, providing high quality biospecimen ready to support advanced research needs.
  • Understand the financial, scientific, and ethical implications of poor-quality biospecimens in drug discovery and diagnostic development.
  • Identify key criteria for selecting reliable HBS providers, including quality control practices, regulatory compliance, and donor diversity.
  • Biospecimen quality is essential—Proper collection, handling, and storage directly impact data accuracy, biomarker discovery, and reproducibility in oncology research.
  • Ethically sourced, well-annotated biospecimens accelerate clinical relevance—Access to diverse, high-integrity samples with rich clinical metadata empowers more predictive and translational insights.

Presenters

Associate Director Product Management
Discovery Life Sciences

Meredith Osborn, MS, is a biospecimen expert with over 15 years of experience in FFPE biobanking and other biospecimen solutions. As Associate Director of Product Management, she leads strategic initiatives to develop innovative products, meet research needs, and drive thought leadership in the field.

Senior Director of Product Management
BioIVT

With a career that spans over 20 years at the bench, as well as a Director and a Global Product Manager, all involving the use of biospecimens in the fields of cancer, immunology and virology, Cathie is now Senior Director of Product Marketing, Personalized Medicine, at BioIVT.

Senior Director
Global Biobanks
Crown Bioscience

Katharina Krohn leads Crown Bioscience’s Surgical Biobanking business including all global operations from the various clinical networks. Before joining the company, she was employed at the Center for Biochemistry and Molecular Cell Biology at the University Medical Center in Göttingen. Her work focused on molecular biology and protein biochemistry and protein biochemical experiments on the expression and purification of recombinant proteins. Katharina started within the pathology department as a technician in 2014, responsible for the coordination and execution of customer projects. Her first activities as a biobank manager began in 2016 resulting in the founding of today's Liquid Biopsy Biobank.

Production Partner

Discovery Life Sciences

Discovery Life Sciences is a global leader in biospecimens and specialty lab services, enabling the discovery and development of groundbreaking therapeutics and diagnostics. With a robust portfolio of human biospecimens and cellular starting material, preclinical ADME-tox solutions, and cutting-edge specialty lab services, we provide our partners with the tools, data and expertise they need to succeed. From genomics and proteomics to cell biology and molecular pathology, our comprehensive service offerings support every phase of the scientific journey, from research through clinical trials. For more information, visit www.dls.com.

BioIVT

BioIVT enables smarter science and accelerates medical breakthroughs by delivering high-quality personalized biospecimen solutions and research services to life science and diagnostic industries. Recognized as an industry leader, BioIVT specializes in control and disease state samples including human and animal tissues or preparations, ADME-Tox products and research services, cell and gene therapy products, blood, and other biofluids. By combining technical expertise and exceptional customer service with unmatched access to biological specimens, BioIVT serves the research community as a trusted partner in ELEVATING SCIENCE®.

Crown Bioscience

Crown Bioscience, a JSR Life Sciences company, is a global contract research organization (CRO) dedicated to accelerating drug discovery and development in oncology and immuno-oncology.

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Richard Kondo, McLean Collins, and Cathie G. Miller highlighted Episode 3 of the Cutting Edge Conversations series focused on innovations in the area of sourcing human biosamples for research. The event focused on sourcing human samples for research, including the value and necessity of working with human tissue during drug discovery, as well as some of the distinct challenges researchers face.

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