This Biospecimens, Pathology, and Clinical Database Core (Core A) will not only furnish essential services for the individual projects by managing patient data, safety, and samples, but it will provide a link between clinical data and research outcomes and interphase with the Biostatistics and Bioinformatics Core to allow for formal interactions between existing datasets to develop relational networks. It will accomplish its goals by integrating with and building upon existing, successful infrastructure housed at the Mayo Clinic, making the Core A an efficient, integral component of this SPORE. The significant patient referral base and clinical practice at the Mayo Clinic (>10,000 patient visits annually with multiple myeloma and related conditions) will allow substantial patient recruitment to the clinical trials and translational studies in this Mayo SPORE in multiple myeloma. The already extant 8000+ bone marrow samples in our Biospecimens Core make Aims in SPORE projects 3 and 4 possible. The on-going initiative of collecting data and research specimens from additional myeloma patients will feed into all SPORE projects and make Development Research and Career Development Award Programs possible.
The Aims of the Core are: 1, to provide support for collection, transport, processing and storage of samples; 2, to supply the data system infrastructure to track all SPORE patients and samples; 3, to provide coordination and oversight of distribution of samples to SPORE investigators; and 4, to generate and complete data-mining projects using existing clinical data, including exploration of flow-cytometry, FISH, and GEP. This Core provides a mechanism of consistent and compatible data handling, thereby facilitating management of collected data and integration with data from existing Mayo resources. Areas of data support include database development, data form development and processing, quality control, data collection and entry, and data archiving. This Core is unique not only in its scope and potential, but also in that it will be built on existing (but currently unfunded) tissue banking facilities and processes at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester and in Arizona, guaranteeing successful performance. Finally, Core A will interface with the clinical research components of other SPORE grantees and cancer centers to facilitate multi-institutional clinical research arising out of national myeloma research efforts.
The strengths of the Biospecimens/Bioinformatics Core are our collaboration with each of the projects, our close integration with the Biostatistics/Bioinformatics Core and the diverse experience or our members. This core builds upon the innovative and time-tested procedures and systems established with our Comprehensive Cancer Center and by leaders in the field of multiple myeloma.
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