Keith and Jenny DiMarino were expecting their third child 11 years ago when they got e-mails that promoted the preservation of stem cells from their baby's umbilical cord.
The couple opted not to do so, but the concept fascinated Keith DiMarino, who was then growing the South Jersey document storage business he established in 2003. He went on to expand and relocate his DocuVault facility several times, and in 2021, he launched GenVault, an ultracold biorepository capable of preserving 60 million frozen samples of blood plasma and serum, brain and other human or animal tissues, and vaccines.
Cell lines — identical copies produced by culturing a single cell — also are stored at GenVault and can number in the millions. They're raw materials of research into prevention and treatment of diseases such as cancer, Alzheimer's, addiction, and COVID-19 at the cellular and genetic level.
