MODEL SYSTEMS SHARED RESOURCE: BIOSAMPLE REPOSITORY FACILITY (BRF) PROJECT SUMMARY/ABSTRACT Fox Chase Cancer Center (FCCC) established biospecimen banking activities in 1987 to coordinate the ethical collection, storage, annotation and distribution of tissue and peripheral blood samples to support translational research. This centralized shared resource operates under the supervision of Denise Connolly, PhD (MT) and is advised by an inter-programmatic Facility Advisory Committee (FAC). To enhance BRF services, the Center invested $369,770 for a PE Vectra Multispectral Quantitative Imaging System and a MesoScale Discovery chemiluminescent ELISA platform. The Biosample Repository Facility (BRF) has three major functions: 1) to identify participants, obtain informed consent, collect tissue, blood and/or urine specimens and obtain information on personal and family histories of cancer, clinical intervention and lifestyle factors for use in research; 2) to process and store human biospecimens obtained through investigator-initiated studies; and 3) to provide tissue-related analysis services including custom tissue microarray (TMA) construction, standard immunoperoxidase and fluorescent immunohistochemical detection and analysis of biomarker expression. Working in collaboration with pathologists, medical oncologists, surgeons and other hospital personnel, specifically trained BRF staff obtains subject informed consent, collects samples and assembles comprehensive clinical, pathological and personal/demographic information about each donor and the corresponding samples. As part of this banking process, the BRF staff provides: 1) diagnostic pathology support; 2) a comprehensive informed consent process for the appropriate collection of tissue, blood and other biospecimens for research; 3) a specialized biospecimen bank devoted to the collection and distribution of de- identified specimens to support research; 4) custom TMA construction; 5) immunohistochemical staining; 6) computer assisted tissue analysis services; and 7) extensive supporting data from the clinical record and self- reported health history of each participant. All specimens collected by and housed in the BRF are linked to comprehensive clinical databases supported by the Population Studies Facility (PSF). The BRF currently houses over 16,500 fresh-frozen tissue samples, over 47,000 blood samples, and has access to >100,000 surgical pathology cases. The annual accruals for new tissue and blood specimens are approximately 1,500 and 3,000, respectively. In 2014, the BRF served 31 FCCC investigators (24 peer-review funded) across all five Research Programs. Ninety (90%) percent of the BRF's 2014 use (by primary service line) was by peer-review funded Cancer Center members. Future plans involve the Center's commitment to construct a dedicated freezer farm that will provide sample storage capacity for the next ten years.
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