What: Two researchers from Rutgers have given new life to the Camden Study, a dataset of over 4,700 women during pregnancy and beyond, conducted between 1985 and 2006. The data is unique because it focused on historically underrepresented populations: 45% of participants were Hispanic, 38% were Black, and 17% were white. Nearly 100% were Medicaid recipients, and many were teenagers during their pregnancy. The data was maintained by Prof. Xinhua Chen at Rowan University, but as Chen approached retirement, she wasn’t sure what would happen to the repository of information. The Rutgers researchers– Zorimar Rivera-Núñez and Emily Barrett—got Rutgers to take over the eight freezers worth of specimens and a “mountain” of data.

Key line: “The collection houses so much data that even after extensive publications from the original research team, much of it has never been fully mined and analyzed. For example, with 13 designated Superfund sites in Camden County, the cohort provides a resource for studying environmental exposures and pregnancy outcomes, an area that has received little attention to date. The biorepository also offers unique opportunities to apply modern analytical techniques to historical samples. The ability to tease valuable information from both data and tissue samples has advanced greatly since researchers first analyzed the Camden data.”

Source: Rutgers University