Optimally preserved human tissue specimens are the backbone of cancer research for basic, clinical, translational and population scientists. The purpose of the Tissue Core (TC) is: 1. To ensure the collection and storage of well-annotated human tissues for research, and to provide investigators with access to high quality human specimens, including fresh and frozen tissues, fixed tissue, and DNA/RNA products. 2. To provide histology, immunohistochemistry and in-situ hybridization services for paraffin embedded tissue. These services, outsourced in the prior core submission, have been incorporated within the Moffitt Tissue Core Facility. 3. To manufacture tissue microarrays using our rich resource of archival material here at Moffitt Cancer Center. We have recently implemented a procedure for the transfer of all archival material no longer required for clinical care to the Tissue Core for research. These will provide a repository for the construction of tissue microarrays, a service that was also outsourced prior to this submission. The Core is administrated by Domenico Coppola, MD, and Mary E. Edgerton, MD, PhD, Scientific Directors, Tyron Hoover, MD, JD, Medical Director, and the Tissue Core Executive Committee (TCEC), a multidisciplinary committee responsible for recommending policy governing tissue release and utilization, and ensuring compliance with all appropriate regulatory bodies. On average, the Tissue Core has distributed over 1,000 tissue samples and nearly 800 nucleic acid derivatives per year to investigators. The Tissue Core (TC) future goals include implementation of standard tissue banking processes in a network of community hospitals, linking clinical outcomes to patient samples. In conjunction with the Informatics Core, TC is expanding its informatics support. There is also an ongoing effort to improve the collection, processing and storage of tissues, and to optimize the collection, processing and storage of fine needle aspirate specimens for molecular and proteomic analyses. Finally, TC is developing specialized tissue based molecular testing (FISH,C-ISH, gene polymorphism-Invader) as an adjunct to immunohistochemistry.
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