Department of Defense Serum Repository - History

History

The earliest serum housed in the DoDSR was collected through the Armed Forces’ HLTV-III screening program, implemented in 1985 in response to the emergence of a new human virus, subsequently known as Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV). Early laboratory testing was performed via contracted private laboratories. Screening soon expanded to all civilian applicants processed at Military Entrance Processing Stations. A condition of some early laboratory testing contracts specified that remnant serum were to remain in frozen storage. In 1989, the Army’s Walter Reed Army Institute of Research (WRAIR) awarded a contract to McKesson to consolidate and store accumulated residual serum specimens at a single facility, established in proximity to WRAIR in Rockville, Maryland. The HIV Research Program (established by Congressional Direction in 1986), under the WRAIR Division of Retrovirology, established the Walter Reed Army Serum Repository, which would evolve to become the Army/Navy Serum Repository in 1989. In 2001, the repository inventory was moved to its current location, a 25,000-square-foot (2,300 m2) facility in Silver Spring, Maryland. In recent years, the DoDSR has grown by approximately 1.9-2.3 million specimens annually. By 2007, the DoDSR inventory had grown to over 44 million specimens, and by the end of 2009, over 50,000,000 specimens.