Mother with her young twin daughters, walking on a beach

Biobank

eLIXIR is collecting routine blood samples from mothers at their first antenatal visit at Guy’s and St Thomas’, and from babies after delivery. 

Overview

We are creating a biobank of maternal and neonatal samples for 'life-course' research at Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust.

The eLIXIR Research Tissue Bank offers the opportunity to study the mechanisms of health and disease in our Data Linkage population by collecting blood samples with informed consent. We are building a unique bioresource that can be used to investigate the underlying biological processes involved in pregnancy and those influenced by environmental factors.

To date, we have samples from over 1000 women. Mothers are consented by members of the eLIXIR research team at their first antenatal visit to Guy’s and St Thomas’ for an additional sample to their routine blood collection. Samples are immediately processed and stored as aliquots of whole blood, serum, and plasma at -80oC.

In the community setting, an extra blood sample is collected from infants as part of the routine heel prick test (an additional Guthrie card). We plan to extend the bioresource to collect samples from women attending antenatal care at King’s College Hospital.

We are currently recruiting to the COVID-19 Sub-study, where we are investigating the effect of COVID-19 in pregnancy. Samples donated are tested for antibodies to the virus and other measurements that will help us understand whether someone has likely had COVID-19 or not, and how this may affect their pregnancy and their baby.

The Research Tissue Bank is listed on the UKCRC TDCC website and the eLIXIR team encourage applications from researchers who are interested in using the samples.