The NIST environmental specimen banking system consists of two environmental specimen banks (ESBs): the National Biomonitoring Specimen Bank (NBSB) established in 1979 at the NIST Gaithersburg, Maryland, campus and the Marine Environmental Specimen Bank (Marine ESB) established in 2002 at the Hollings Marine Laboratory in Charleston, South Carolina. Both facilities were specifically designed to store environmental specimens over long periods of time (50-100 years) and in such a way that future researchers could use these specimens to answer questions regarding trends in newly recognized environmental contaminants and verification of past analytical results. The NIST environmental banking system maintains collections of human liver specimens, human blood serum and blood spots, human diet samples, marine sediments, fish tissues, mussels, oysters, marine mammal tissues, and bird eggs and feathers collected as part of several monitoring and research programs supported by the U.S. Government.

The NIST environmental banking system emphasizes: (1) carefully designed (and published) collection and banking procedures; (2) cryogenic storage to insure sample stability; (3) HEPA-filtered clean air conditions in the sample preparation and freezer rooms; (4) cryogenic homogenization systems for sample preparation; (5) computerized sample inventory and tracking system; (6) computerized security and monitoring systems; and (7) redundancy to minimize sample loss due to equipment or system failure.

Marine ESB Banking Projects

• Mussel Watch
• Marine Mammal Health and Stranding Response Program (MMHSRP)
• Alaska Marine Mammal Tissue Archival Project (AMMTAP)
• Bottlenose Dolphin Health Research
• Marine Mammal QA Program
• Seabird Tissue Archival and Monitoring Project (STAMP)
• American Peregrine Falcon Monitoring Plan