The purpose of this shared resource is to provide human tissues, biological fluids, and expert pathologic interpretation for project investigators. The Pathology Core will work with an existing resource, the GI SPORE Tissue Bank, which is under the same director (Dr. R. Anders) as this proposed Pathology Core, to establish a collection of properly banked liver tissue and biological fluids. The tissue samples will range from formalin- fixed paraffin-embedded and frozen tissues available from liver transplantation specimens which will be linked to clinical data. This Pathology Core will collect high quality snap frozen and formalin fixed samples from liver transplant patients. The biospecimens will be harvested and banked in accordance with the National Cancer Institute?s Best Practice Guidelines for Biorepositories. Distribution of these specimens to project investigators will be coordinated by the Pathology Core director. This CORE will procure specimens under the supervision of a pathologist with expertise in hepatopathology and in close collaboration with surgeons, transplant hepatologists and basic research investigators to maximize translational impact of the projects. This proposed CORE will leverage existing database framework, specimen distribution and prioritization systems that originated from existing SPORES. Specifically, we will have clinical histories linked to pathologic data in a password protected database. A mechanism will be in place for prioritization of distribution of requested resources to investigators within and external to the Johns Hopkins Medical System.
