Rutgers University Cell And DNA Repository
Tokarski Millemann Architects was the architect for a DNA storage Facility for Rutgers. From the outside, it looks like any typical academic building on the Rutgers University campus. However, inside RUCDR (formerly Rutgers University Cell and DNA Repository), millions of samples of human cells and DNA lie in hundreds of vats—in conditions ranging from room temperature to the temperature of liquid nitrogen depending on the sample. Some are swabs from the cheeks of alcoholics, part of a massive study on the genetic causes of alcoholism funded by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. Some are blood samples from autistic children and their families who have enrolled in a study. In still other freezers are brains from deceased Alzheimer’s patients, tumor samples from biopsies of cancer patients, and urine and feces samples that researchers are using to study the collection of bacteria that inhabit the human body.
RUCDR acts as the federal genetic repository, storing biological samples from five of the institutes that make up the National Institutes of Health. Doctors and researchers from other universities and hospitals around the country ship samples to Rutgers to be stored for future research studies.
