Lara Mouttham Biobanking - Blue Sky Horizons (ABNA 19th Annual Conference)

Lara Mouttham

Dr. Lara Mouttham obtained a PhD in Zoology and Wildlife Conservation from Cornell University in 2016 in collaboration with the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute (SCBI) as part of the Cornell-Smithsonian Joint Training Program for her work on primordial follicle activation and ovarian tissue cryopreservation in cattle and domestic cats. In addition to her graduate research and subsequent postdoctoral fellowship, she maintained the SCBI Genome Resource Bank which stores gametes and genetic materials from wildlife species. She joined the Cornell Veterinary Biobank (CVB) at the Cornell University College of Veterinary Medicine in 2018, where she is now a research associate and the Assistant Director of Biobank Laboratory Services. She is part of the quality management team that prepared the CVB to be the first biobank in the world to achieve accreditation to ISO 20387 in 2019 and has been actively involved in maintaining its accreditation status since. She is also an assessor for the American Association for Laboratory Accreditation (A2LA), performing assessments of other biobanks for accreditation to ISO 20387. Her areas of interest include biospecimen science, quality management systems, cryobiology, and translational biobanking in support of medical advancements for both humans and animals. She is passionate about educating fellow scientists on the importance of quality assurance in research and introducing the public to the field of biobanking.