Participating in Biobanking for Fertility Research

What is biobanking and what is its purpose?

Everyone deserves to start a family if that’s what they desire. To help people overcome fertility challenges and pregnancy loss, we actively conduct ongoing research. Biobanking involves collecting body tissue and body fluid samples from women and men who have fertility issues, and storing them. We then look at a large pool of samples for significant characteristics and gain insight into improving fertility and reproductive health for current and future families. We welcome you to join our efforts as a biobank participant. This research project is led by our Stanford Fertility and Reproductive Health team at Stanford Medicine and supports research studies conducted by other departments as well e.g. the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology and the larger Stanford community to improve our understanding of reproductive disorders.

What does participation entail?

If you are interested in participating, no changes to your clinical care will be necessary. You will have the option of donating tissue that is present in excess after your planned treatments or procedures. The only additional time requirement is for the informed consent process, which your doctor or nurse will help you complete.

What do you collect?

We have two biobanks. Each stores different items:

  • The ROSE Biobank (Reproductive research On Specimens in Excess) stores blood, urine, endometrial biopsies, and pregnancy tissue (via dilation and curettage procedure). These excess specimens would otherwise be discarded. You also have the option of donating extra blood when you are already undergoing a blood draw.
  • The RENEW Biobank (Regenerative medicine through the Ethical procurement of Nonviable or Excess cellular Waste) accepts cryopreserved (frozen) reproductive materials including embryos, oocytes, sperm, ovarian tissue, testicular tissue, and follicular fluid that patients no longer want for their fertility treatment.

Who is eligible to participate?

All patients are eligible to participate and we welcome patients of all genders and races with and without fertility disorders to participate. 

For more information, please contact:

Rose Biobank:
Email Phone (650) 497-6021

RENEW Biobank:
Email Phone (650) 497-6021

Theresa Nguyen (Coordinator of ROSE and RENEW Biobanks):
Email