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National Marine Mammal Tissue Bank

National Marine Mammal Tissue Bank. National Institute of Standards and Technology Chemical Science and Technology Laboratory Analytical Chemistry Division Gaithersburg, MD, and Charleston, SC.

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National Marine Mammal Tissue Bank

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  1. National Marine Mammal Tissue Bank National Institute of Standards and TechnologyChemical Science and Technology LaboratoryAnalytical Chemistry DivisionGaithersburg, MD, and Charleston, SC

  2. Congress established the National Marine Mammal Tissue Bank (NMMTB) was established in 1992 (PL 102-587). Alaska Native hunters collect specimens for the NMMTB through the Alaska Marine Mammal Health and Stranding Response Program. If you have downloaded RealPlayer you can hear NMMTB staff explain what they do when you click on the whale tail.

  3. Meet the NIST NMMTB staff John Kucklick (on the right) Paul Becker Steven Christopher

  4. Organizations participating in the program include: • North Slope Borough • Kawerak • Geological Survey, AK Science Ctr. • Fish and Wildlife Service • National Marine Fisheries Service • The Marine Mammal Center • New England Aquarium • University of North Carolina, Wilmington • National Ocean Service, Coastal Center for Environmental Health and Biomolecular Research

  5. The NMMTB (National Marine Mammal Tissue Bank) provides samples for: • Future studies of new contaminants • Future studies using new techniques • Comparing results over time

  6. How does it work? • Hunters collect samples using exact procedures (“protocols”) developed by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). • They collect samples of blubber, fat, liver, and kidney

  7. Materials used to remove, handle, transport, and store specimens are made of titanium and Teflon. These materials don’t introduce anything that might be confused with contaminants already in the sample

  8. We collect two samples from each animal of each type of specimen. Sample A is for long-term archival. Sample B is available for immediate analysis if necessary.

  9. Both samples A and B are frozen in the field with liquid nitrogen and transported frozen to the NMMTB. They are kept in liquid nitrogen freezers at –184 °F.

  10. We place the frozen sample in a teflon piston device. It shatters the sample into a powder.

  11. We then place the sample in disk mill that turns the sample into the consistency of face powder.

  12. We divide the 150 gram sample into small samples and put back in the freezer

  13. The NMMTB has a tissue access policy. Above is how we expect tissues will be used.

  14. There are approximately 1,500 marine mammal tissue specimens archived in the NMMTB. There are samples for whales, seals, sea lions, walrus, polar bears, and sea otters.

  15. Uses of the tissue archive include: • Preparing samples containing precisely known levels of organic contaminants and heavy metals for quality assurance programs. • Establishing nation-wide baseline levels of contaminants • Determining geographic patterns of contaminants

  16. John Kucklick describes how they prepare samples to test for persistent organic pollutants. They first separate the contaminants from the fats in tissues like whale blubber

  17. This is a gas chromatograph with electron capture detector. It uses a 200 foot glass column with a coating that separates the contaminants for measurement by the electron capture detector.

  18. It takes 3 weeks to process and analyze 15 samples. It takes a month or more for NIST to approve the report for release.

  19. A Mass Spectrometer provides more information than an electron capture detector. It can measure toxaphene separately from PCBs. The Mass Spec costs about $90,000 compared to $40,000 for the Electron Capture Detector

  20. Steven Christopher measures heavy metals There are metals all around, so you have to take special care to have pure water and work under a hood

  21. Steven prepares the heavy metal samples by decomposing all the solids in a microwave. He has to adjust the time and power of the microwave to get good samples.

  22. Once the heavy metal samples are prepared, we can measure them in this Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometer (ICPMS). The machine costs about $200,000

  23. Click below to return to the Resource Guide Return to the Resource Guide

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