UC Irvine’s Brain Initiative Cell Atlas Network (BICAN) Brain Procurement Program for the Center for Multiomic Human Brain Cell Atlas Project
High-quality neurotypical postmortem human brain tissue is essential but difficult to obtain for constructing comprehensive human brain cell atlases. Here we describe the establishment of UC Irvine's Brain Procurement Program, a coordinated initiative to collect and process neurotypical donor brains for multiomic mapping studies within the NIH BRAIN Initiative Cell Atlas Network (BICAN) consortium. Through partnerships with the Orange County Coroner's Office, the UC Irvine Willed Body Program, UCI Medical Center, and the Children's Hospital of Orange County, we have developed standardized workflows encompassing donor identification, postmortem brain recovery and processing, region-of-interest dissection, neurotypical donor selection, and data management. Our experience demonstrates the feasibility of a community-based, multi-institutional procurement framework while highlighting challenges in recruiting neurotypical donors and ensuring demographic representation reflective of Southern California. We further identify opportunities to strengthen outreach and donation pathways. This program provides a scalable model for advancing population-reflective, high-quality human brain cell atlas efforts.
Authors
- Richard A. Stein (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0541-7150)
- Edwin S. Monuki (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5130-781X)
- Anna Virovka
- J J Lou
- Todd C. Holmes (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8152-8832)
- William H. Yong
- Firoza Mamdani (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8238-2492)
- W. Bunney
- Adolfo Sequeira (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3040-1190)
- Justine Silva (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0001-9524-8505)
- Joe Ecker
- Blynn G. Bunney (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5483-3284)
- John R. Crawford (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4100-7001)
- Melina H. Thaxton (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3493-7208)
- Jillian Berry
- Elizabeth Head (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1115-6396)
- Kevin A. Wood (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9170-6129)
- Hannah Lui Park (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9973-1396)
- X Xu
- Preston Cartagena
- Bing Ren
- Sierra Wright
- Alexis De La Rosa
- Virginia D. Allhusen
- C. A. Stark
- Victoria Raha Sigaroudi
- Vishwaas Reddy Gangeddula
- Amanda Wilson
- Sabrina Stein
- Lourdes Gonzalez
- Elizabeth Mendoza
- Ginny Wu
- Gabriel K Hui
- Thomas Gross
- Matthew Nguyen
- Noah Gama
- Jason M Knight
- Bryan M Tran
- Miyoung Kim
- Brianna Gawronski
- Zeynep Arat
- Zhiqun Tan
- Jasmine Gama
- Darren Anousaya
- Lorena Valenzuela
- Payton Sho Huai Lin
- C. Dirk Keene
Institutions
- Children's Hospital of Orange County (US)
- Salk Institute for Biological Studies (US)
- University of Washington (US)
- University of California, Irvine (US)
- Irvine University (US)
- New York Genome Center (US)
- California State Polytechnic University (US)
Publication Details
- Journal
- bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory)
- Published
- 2025-12-26
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.64898/2025.12.23.696304
- Primary Topic
- Organ Donation and Transplantation
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 0.00
Funders
- National Institutes of Health