Dr. Karen Berliner received her Ph.D. in Molecular Biology in 1988 and continued her interest in academic research until relocating to Washington, DC in the early 1990s through a fellowship with the US Agency for International Development. Here she shifted her focus to international health and helped to develop communication efforts to improve health practices globally, with an emphasis in developing countries.
Realizing that there were important public health issues to be addressed domestically, Dr. Berliner began to bring together her interests in science and education and assumed the leadership for the National Laboratory Training Network, a program that brought training to over 10,000 individuals annually who work in public health laboratories.
Following an invitation to become the director of a repository under contract with the US National Cancer Institute (NCI), Dr. Berliner began a long career in the collection, processing and storage of biological specimens for research. In time, the NCI invited Karen to come to the Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics to oversee the contracts that managed the Division’s approximately ten million biospecimens.
In the early 2000s, Dr. Berliner was elected to the Board of Directors for the International Society for Biological and Environmental Repositories (ISBER), where she remains active to this day. She spearheaded ISBER’s efforts to develop best practices for biorepositories and served as the editor-in-chief for the first two editions of Best Practices which have now been adapted globally. Dr. Berliner also chaired ISBER’s Education and Training Committee and along with Dr. Fay Betsou, developed the first edition of the “Self-Assessment Tool” (now known as the Biobank Assessment Tool), which allows for biobanks to evaluate the degree to which they adhere to ISBER’s Best Practices. She also developed and presented numerous workshops and classes on biorepository operations.
In addition to her work with ISBER, Dr. Berliner had the privilege of contributing to the NCI’s Best Practices and the Biorepository Accreditation Program developed under by the College of American Pathologists.
In 2021, Dr. Berliner founded BioIntegrity, LLC to continue to find ways to contribute to the important field of biologics and biospecimen management.
BioIntegrity, LLC 