Bay Biosciences provides high quality, clinical grade fresh frozen bio-specimens, cryogenically preserved sera (serum), plasma and peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) biofluid samples from patients diagnosed with psoriasis disease.

The sera (serum), plasma and PBMC biofluid specimens are processed from patient’s peripheral whole-blood using customized collection and processing protocols. The psoriasis disease bio-specimens are collected from unique patients diagnosed with psoriasis disease and are provided to a valued pharmaceutical customer for research, diagnostics, discovery and drug development.

Detailed clinical data, psoriasis disease patients history, symptoms, complete blood count (CBC), elevated biomarker levels, genetic and metabolic information, histopathological findings, biopsy tissue, annotations associated with psoriasis disease specimens is provided to a valued customer for research, development and drug discovery. The psoriasis disease sera (serum), plasma and peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) biofluid are processed from patients peripheral whole-blood using customized collection and processing protocols.

Psoriasis Disease Overview

Psoriasis is a chronic autoimmune disease that causes the rapid buildup of skin cells. This buildup of cells causes scaling on the skin’s surface. Inflammation and redness around the scales is fairly common. Typical psoriatic scales are whitish-white and develop in thick, red patches. Sometimes, these patches will crack and bleed. Psoriasis is the result of a sped-up skin production process. Typically, skin cells grow deep in the skin and slowly rise to the surface. Eventually, they fall off. The typical life cycle of a skin cell is one month.

According to the National Psoriasis Foundation, psoriasis disease affects more than eight million patients in the United States. Psoriasis is a skin disorder that causes skin cells to multiply up to ten times faster than normal. This makes the skin build up into bumpy red patches covered with white scales. These patches can grow anywhere, but most appear on the scalp, elbows, knees, and lower back. Psoriasis cannot be passed from person to person. It does sometimes happen in members of the same family. Psoriasis usually appears in early adulthood. For most patients, it affects just a few areas. In severe cases, psoriasis can cover large parts of the body. The patches can heal and then come back throughout a patients life.

Types of Psoriasis Disease

Following are the several types of psoriasis:

  • Plaque psoriasis: Plaque psoriasis is the most common form of psoriasis. Plaque psoriasis causes dry, raised, red skin patches (lesions) covered with silvery scales. The plaques might be itchy or tender, and there may be few or many. They usually appear on elbows, knees, lower back and scalp.
  • Nail psoriasis: Psoriasis can affect fingernails and toenails, causing pitting, abnormal nail growth and discoloration. Psoriatic nails might loosen and separate from the nail bed (onycholysis). Severe cases may cause the nail to crumble.
  • Guttate psoriasis: Guttate psoriasis primarily affects young adults and children. It’s usually triggered by a bacterial infection such as strep throat. It’s marked by small, drop-shaped, scaling lesions on the trunk, arms or legs.
  • Inverse psoriasis: Inverse psoriasis affects the skin folds of the groin, buttocks and breasts. Inverse psoriasis causes smooth patches of red skin that worsen with friction and sweating. Fungal infections may trigger inverse psoriasis.
  • Pustular psoriasis: This rare form of psoriasis causes clearly defined pus-filled lesions that occur in widespread patches (generalized pustular psoriasis) or in smaller areas on the palms of the hands or the soles of the feet.
  • Erythrodermic psoriasis. Erythrodermic psoriasis is rare and uncommon type of psoriasis disease, erythrodermic psoriasis can cover your entire body with a red, peeling rash that can itch or burn intensely.
  • Psoriatic arthritis: Psoriatic arthritis causes swollen, painful joints that are typical of arthritis. Sometimes the joint symptoms are the first or only symptom or sign of psoriasis. And at times only nail changes are seen. Symptoms range from mild to severe, and psoriatic arthritis can affect any joint. It can cause stiffness and progressive joint damage that in the most serious cases may lead to permanent joint damage.

Signs and Symptoms of Psoriasis Disease

Psoriasis symptoms differ from person to person and depend on the type of psoriasis. Areas of psoriasis can be as small as a few flakes on the scalp or elbow, or cover the majority of the body.

Following are the most common signs and symptoms of plaque psoriasis include:

  • Red, raised, inflamed patches of skin
  • Whitish-silver scales or plaques on the red patches
  • Dry skin that may crack and bleed
  • Soreness around patches
  • Itching and burning sensations around patches
  • Thick, pitted nails
  • Painful, swollen joints

Not every patient will experience all of these symptoms. Some patients will experience entirely different symptoms if they have a less common type of psoriasis. Most patients with psoriasis go through cycles of symptoms. The condition may cause severe symptoms for a few days or weeks, and then the symptoms may clear up and be almost unnoticeable. Then, in a few weeks or if made worse by a common psoriasis trigger, the condition may flare up again. Sometimes, symptoms of psoriasis disappear completely.

Causes of Psoriasis Disease

Exact causes of psoriasis are unknown, experts believe that it’s a combination of things. Psoriasis is a chronic autoimmune disease, something wrong with the immune system causes inflammation, triggering new skin cells to form too quickly. Normally, skin cells are replaced every 10 to 30 days. With psoriasis, new cells grow every 3 to 4 days. The buildup of old cells being replaced by new ones creates the whitish-silver scales on the skin. Researchers believe that there are two main factor that contribute to developing psoriasis, which are genetics and the immune system.

Immune system

Psoriasis is an autoimmune disease,  which means that the body attacks itself. In the case of psoriasis, white blood cells known as T cells mistakenly attack the skin cells. In a typical body, white blood cells are deployed to attack and destroy invading bacteria and fight infections. This mistaken attack causes the skin cell production process to go into overdrive. The sped-up skin cell production causes new skin cells to develop too quickly. They are pushed to the skin’s surface, where they pile up. This results in the plaques that are most commonly associated with psoriasis. The attacks on the skin cells also cause red, inflamed areas of skin to develop.

Genetics

Some patients inherit genes that make them more likely to develop psoriasis. If you have an immediate family member with a skin condition, your risk for developing psoriasis is higher. However, the percentage of people who have psoriasis and a genetic predisposition is small. Approximately two to three percent of patients with the gene develop the condition, according to the National Psoriasis Foundation (NPF).

Psoriasis Disease Triggers

Most patients who are predisposed to psoriasis may be free of symptoms for years until the disease is triggered by some environmental factor.

Following are the common psoriasis triggers, which include:
  • Infections, such as strep throat or skin infections
  • Weather, especially cold, dry conditions
  • Injury to the skin, such as a cut or scrape, a bug bite, or a severe sunburn
  • Stress
  • Smoking and exposure to secondhand smoke
  • Heavy alcohol consumption
  • Certain medications, including lithium, high blood pressure medications and antimalarial drugs
  • Rapid withdrawal of oral or systemic corticosteroids

Diagnosis of Psoriasis Disease

Usually a full physical examination of the patient is conducted by the doctor to examine the skin, scalp and nails to check for psoriasis symptoms. Your doctor may also take a small sample of skin biopsy for examination under a microscope. This helps determine the type of psoriasis and rule out other disorders.

Physical examination

Most doctors are able to make a diagnosis with a simple physical exam. Symptoms of psoriasis are typically evident and easy to distinguish from other conditions that may cause similar symptoms. During this exam, be sure to show your doctor all areas of concern. In addition,  you maybe asked if any of your family members have psoriasis disease.

Biopsy

If the symptoms are unclear or if your doctor wants to confirm their suspected diagnosis, they may take a small sample of skin, which is called a biopsy. The skin biopsy will be sent to a lab, where it’ll be examined under a microscope. The examination can diagnose the type of psoriasis you have. It can also rule out other possible disorders or infections. Most biopsies are done in the doctor’s office. Your doctor will likely inject a local numbing medication to make the biopsy less painful. They will then send the biopsy to a lab for analysis.

Risk Factors of Psoriasis Disease

Anyone can develop psoriasis disease, most of instances of the disease begin in the pediatric years. Following are the factors that can increase the risk of developing psoriasis disease:

  • Family history: Psoriasis disease runs in families. Having one parent with psoriasis increases the risk of getting the disease, and having two parents with psoriasis increases your risk even more.
  • Stress: Stress can impact the immune system, high stress levels may increase the risk of developing psoriasis disease.
  • Smoking: Tobacco use increases the risk of developing psoriasis disease may also increase the severity of the disease. Smoking may also play a role in the initial development of the psoriasis.

Complications of Psoriasis Disease

Patients with psoriasis disease are at greater risk of developing other health conditions, including:
  • Psoriatic arthritis, which causes pain, stiffness and swelling in and around the joints
  • Eye conditions, such as conjunctivitis, blepharitis and uveitis
  • Obesity
  • Type-2 Diabetes
  • High blood pressure
  • Cardiovascular disease
  • Other autoimmune disease, such as celiac disease, sclerosis and the inflammatory bowel disease called Crohn’s disease
  • Mental health conditions, such as low self-esteem and depression

Biospecimens

biospecimens

Bay Biosciences is a global leader in providing researchers with high quality, clinical grade, fully characterized human tissue samples, bio-specimens, and human bio-fluid collections.

Moreover, human biospecimens are available including tumor tissue, serum, plasma and PBMC samples from most other therapeutic areas.

Furthermore, Bay Biosciences maintains and manages its own biorepository, the human tissue bank (biobank) consisting of thousands of diseased samples (specimens) and likewise normal healthy donors for controls. Additionally, available in all formats and types.

In fact, our biobank procures and stores fully consented, de-identified and institutional review boards (IRB) approved human tissue samples, human biofluids such as serum samples, plasma samples from various diseases and matched controls.

Also, all our human tissue collections, human biospecimens and human biofluids are provided with detailed, samples associated patient’s clinical data.

In fact, this critical patient’s clinical data includes information relating to their past and current disease, treatment history, lifestyle choices, biomarkers, and genetic information.

Additionally, researchers find the patient’s data associated with the human biospecimens extremely valuable and use it to help identify new effective treatments (drug discovery & development) in oncology, as well as in other therapeutic areas and diseases.

Bay Biosciences banks wide variety of human tissue samples and human biological samples, including fresh frozen human biospecimens cryogenically preserved at – 80°C.

For example fresh frozen tissue samples, tumor tissue samples, formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded (FFPE), tissue slides, with matching human bio-fluids, whole blood and blood-derived products such as human serum, human plasma and human PBMCs.

Bay Biosciences is a global leader in collecting and providing human tissue samples according to the specified requirements and customized, tailor-made collection protocols.

Please contact us anytime to discuss your special research projects and customized human tissue sample requirements.

Types of Biospecimens

Bay Biosciences provides human tissue samples (human specimens) and human biofluids from diseased and normal healthy donors which includes:

Moreover, we can also procure most human biospecimens and human biofluids, special collections and requests for human samples that are difficult to find. All our human tissue samples and human biofluids are procured through IRB-approved clinical protocols and procedures.

In addition to the standard processing protocols, Bay Biosciences can also provide human biofluids such as  human plasma, human serum, and human PBMCs bio-fluid samples using custom processing protocols; you buy donor-specific collections in higher volumes and specified sample aliquots from us.

Bay Biosciences also provides human biospecimens from normal healthy donors; volunteers, for controls and clinical research, Contact us Now.