Epidemiological studies are an important instrument to get relevant information on the health status of populations. They enable researchers to formulate new scientific hypotheses and describe relevant associations, which can lead to risk indicators or risk factors. Aim of the study was to investigate about 200,000 participants to get information on major diseases like Diabetes mellitus and cancer as well as cardiovascular neurologic, psychiatric, respiratory and infectious diseases. Participants spend about one full day in the study center to complete all interviews and examinations, including sampling of blood and other bio materials. To motivate participants to participate in such epidemiological studies, incentives like results of the laboratory examinations are distributed to the family doctor of the participants. Due to the high number of participants, biomarker analyses are expensive and the resources – money and biomaterials – have to be used efficiently. Therefore, at the beginning of the recruitment phase of the GNC in 2014 discussions started, if the data of the so called immediate laboratory analytic – primarily intended as incentive only – can be used scientifically as well. Studies were initiated, which compared the laboratory determinations performed locally with the results of GNC-core laboratory (Greifswald). Considering specific preanalytical limitations and requirements, the data of the GNC-core lab were superior and implemented in the GNC over the time. During the Corona Pandemic the determination of the antibodies against SARS-CoV-2 were performed in the GNC-core laboratory for all participants of the GNC at this time.
Over 100 aliquots per participant were stored for biomarker analytics in biorepositories. Two third of the aliquots are stored centrally at the Helmholtz Munich, whereas one third of the aliquots is stored locally at each site. If biomarker analyses have to be performed within the GNC one bottleneck is the fast accessibility of the aliquots. Currently, the picking rates of the Helmholtz biorepository is limited and will be significantly increased according to new equipment and a revised storage strategy. The aliquots will be rearranged with work benches, which will sort the aliquots at temperatures of -100°C, so that the sample quality will not be at risk. In future, so called high density racks will be used, so that the storage capacity will increase by more than 40%. After the rearrangement, the aliquots will be sorted by materials, i.e. only EDTA plasma from up to 138 different participants will be on one rack. Taking these steps together, the picking rate will be increased by factor 10.
