The Specimen Core provides part of the infrastructure support for Projects 1-4 as well as for future pilot and developmental projects. It has been designed to meet the needs of these projects plus serve as a stand-alone resource for collaborative efforts with other SPOREs. This Core will provide a well-organized and standardized system of specimen collection, storage, distribution and related clinical/research information dissemination that is based on over two decades of experience. There will be consistency and quality assurance in the pathological analysis of tissue specimens. Furthermore, the centralized management of the specimens will facilitate their distribution based upon the priorities defined by a panel of investigators familiar with all of our SPORE research endeavors. There are five central components to this Core: 1. Specimen acquisition, processing, quality control, storage and accessioning into databases. a) Collect, process, store and distribute tissue and serum acquired from patients and controls in the clinic from surgery, and from the rapid autopsy program, with related clinical and pathologic data. b) Prepare DNA, RNA and cDNA, store and distribute to projects c) Perform histological characterization of tissue specimens obtained by the core d) Prepare tissue microarrays for immunohistochemical (IHC) and in situ hybridization (ISH) analyses e) Maintain and expand a prostate cancer specimen repository for potential use by investigators who establish collaborations with the SPORE investigators f) Maintain clinical and selected research results on individual specimens in a relational database. 2. A specimen development program to continually improve the quality of tissue specimens. 3. A prostate cancer xenograft maintenance and development program for comparative tissue studies. 4. Specific services: Interpretation of tissue localization studies by a urologic pathologist, IHC, ISH, RT-PCR and immunoassays, i.e. PSA, and tissue culture. a) Immunohistochemistry and in situ hybridization b) Immunoassays: PSA and other biomarker analyses on serum, plasma or supernatant fluids c) Provide tissue culture support services 5. An administrative program that includes a proactive program of obtaining specimens from minorities, a specimen utilization plan, a quality control program and a program for interactions between SPOREs.
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