Blood and Tissue Core

The Blood and Tissue Core services will be provided by the Center for Advanced Laboratory Medicine (CALM) at Columbia University Medical Center (CUMC). CALM provides access to a wide range of clinical laboratory services for clinical research at CUMC. CALM is the interface between the Clinical Laboratories at New York-Presbyterian Hospital and researchers, pharmaceutical companies, device manufacturers, and diagnostics companies. CALM provides a wide variety of support services for clinical research projects, clinical trials, and projects for the analytical and clinical assessment of new technology, equipment, testing methodologies, and testing protocols. CALM has provided an increasing array of services for the research projects of the Stroke Service, as detailed below. These include acute stroke trials, such as the Neuroprotection with Statin Therapy for Acute Recovery Trial (NeuSTART) within SPOTRIAS; epidemiological projects based at CUMC, such as the Northern Manhattan study and its ancillary studies; and multicenter stroke studies for which CALM sen/es as a laboratory core. Through its involvement in these projects, CALM has grown to become an essential part of the stroke research mission at CUMC. The Director of CALM, Steven L. Spitalnik, M.D., is board certified in Anatomic and Clinical Pathology with training in all aspects of laboratory medicine. Dr. Spitalnik is also the Vice-Chairman of the Division of Laboratory Medicine in the Department of Pathology and Cell Biology at CUMC. He has particular expertise in laboratory instrumentation, microbiology, transfusion medicine, clinical chemistry, molecular biology, and glycobiology. Consultation with other medical directors in the Division of Laboratory Medicine provides additional expertise in all areas of clinical pathology. In particular, the recent addition of Dr. Alex Rai to the faculty in the Division of Laboratory Medicine at CUMC, and as the Scientific Director of CALM, greatly enhances our capabilities in proteomics and personalized medicine. Dr. Spitalnik, other faculty members in Laboratory Medicine, and the technical staff of CALM are all available to assist in designing studies and preparing the laboratory testing components of IRB requests and grant applications.