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MedStar Health Research Institute's core blood and biomarker research laboratory, the Penn Medical Laboratory, has been renamed the Biomarker, Biochemistry and Biorepository Core (B3 Core). The B3 Core has more than 20 years of experience providing scientific, laboratory, and biorepository services for clinical studies, trials, and epidemiologic investigations sponsored by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), other federal agencies, foundations, and pharmaceutical sponsors.
Originally, the lab was located on Pennsylvania Avenue. It moved to the space behind the Hyman Building at MedStar Washington Hospital Center for a time before it was relocated to its current home, University Town Center. Jason Umans, MD, PhD, scientific director of the B3 Core, said of the renaming that, “we thought that our name should be descriptive and, growing out of a vision of our core services developed over the years, we embraced our three key roles in biomarker measurement, biochemistry, and safeguarding a large and growing biorepository.” The historical attachment to the name denied “our central mission as a core service in MHRI,” said Dr. Umans.
The B3 Core is expansive in the resources it provides to the many studies it supports, including research in diabetes, pregnancy, oncology and cardiovascular disease. The bulk of the research supported centers on racial and ethnic minority populations. The B3 Core also has collaborative agreements with university and hospital research labs across the nation to support a wider range of research.
In addition to a large pool of dedicated PRN staff, including Min Tun, Xia Liu, and Bassey Effiok, and Dr. Umans, B3 Core is staffed by Jianhui Zhu, MD, PhD, technical director and AC Green, research technician and supported by administrative manager Matthew Hoffman and executive director Becky Montalvo. For more information about the B3 Core, contact research@medstar.net.
