U.S. Department of Defense

The Department of Defense (DoD) maintains biorespositories of medical and veterinary specimens for the purpose of expanding understanding of diseases and developing medical countermeasures. 

An overview of DoD's repositories can be found in Siwek's 2015 paper, "An Overview of Biorepositories--Past, Present, and Future." Repository types include biobanks, tissue banks, serum repositories, and virtual banks.

The DoD's Serum Repository (DoDSR) is one of their main collections and holds over 55 million specimens. Operations and potential for future studies were addressed in a supplemental issue of Military Medicine, including:

• Perdue, et al (2015) "A Brief Description of the Operation of the DoD Serum Repository"
• Mancuso, et al (2015) "Maximizing the Capabilities of the DoD Serum Repository to Meet Current and Future Needs: Report of the Needs Panel"
• Baird (2015) "Maximizing the Utility of the Serum Repository with Current Technologies and Recommendations to Meet Future Needs: Report of the Technical Panel"

The Joint Pathology Center (JPC) was also reviewed as a resource for researchers by Butler and Baker (2015) in "The DoD Joint Pathology Center as a Resource for Researchers." They note it is the world's largest collection of human pathology specimens, comprised of 7.4 million accessions. The biorespository began during the Civil War and traditionally serves diagnostic purposes. However, newer collections are also used to explore common, service-related exposures or medical conditions.

The U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID) operates the Unified Culture Collection (UCC) which holds bacterial and viral agents for biodefense research and development.