
As NDRI’s new director of Scientific Services, Victoria Corbit, PhD, relies on her own unique perspective from years conducting research at top-tier universities to understand what scientists need and value from NDRI for their experiments using human biospecimens.
There’s a lot to understand. At any given time, NDRI works with hundreds of researchers—both academic and corporate scientists—who require tissue samples for research studies small and large.
No matter the need, NDRI’s established infrastructure uniquely matches researchers’ needs with tissue sourced from organ procurement organizations and tissue banks across the country. The system makes it very easy for researchers to get the quantity and quality of unprocessed samples they need to meet the parameters of their experiments.
Victoria, whose doctorate is in neuroscience, brings extensive research experience to NDRI, including hands on lab work at both University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon University and a post-doctoral fellowship at Princeton University. Now as liaison between scientists and NDRI’s tissue source sites partners, she enjoys seeing a different side of research. She particularly appreciates having a hand in the more translational aspect of research through NDRI, helping scientists heighten the biomedical impact of their work to make things better for humans.
“Human tissue is a very precious resource that might end up helping millions—or billions—of people with a disease down the road,” Victoria says. “It’s incredibly valuable for researchers to have that data and NDRI is in a unique position to help make that happen.”