The NCTN's Alliance for Clinical Trials in Oncology (Alliance) represents a merger of three former NCI-funded cancer cooperative groups (ACOSOG, CALGB, and NCCTG). Combined, these groups and their associated biorepositories represent an unequaled resource of expertise, institutional infrastructure, and high quality, densely annotated patient biospecimens collected from several decades of cancer therapeutic trials. The scientific mission of the Alliance Biorepository and Biospecimen Resource (ABBR) is to support the activities of the Alliance, the NCTN, and the broader cancer research community through four specific aims, which are: 1) To prospectively support Alliance and NCTN-wide clinical cancer trials with respect to biospecimen procurement, tracking, processing, quality assurance, storage, and distribution. The ABBR will develop approaches to streamline biospecimen collection and support the collection of novel biospecimen types for genomic- and proteomic-based biomarker studies in the context of therapeutic trials; 2) To provide a resource of high quality, densely annotated biospecimens for secondary correlative science studies directed toward biomarker validation with high clinical impact. The ABBR will work with other NCTN biorepositories, the NCTN Biospecimen `Front Door Service', and the NCTN Navigator tool to provide inventories of biospecimens that may be suitable for secondary correlative science studies proposed both within the NCTN groups as well as the broader cancer research community. It will also work with other NCTN members and NCI to create an efficient and transparent process for reviewing, approving, and executing such requests so as to speed the translation of candidate biomarkers to cancer diagnostics with clinical utility; 3) To provide scientific leadership to the NCTN biobanking enterprise, by active participation in the NCTN Group Banking Committee (GBC). The ABBR will continue its outstanding commitment to harmonizing and improving biobanking Best Practices by active participation in GBC meetings, subcommittee's activities, and work products, and; 4) To provide expertise and infrastructure support for biobanking efforts beyond the NCTN, including NCI's Experimental Therapeutics Clinical Trials Network (ETCTN) and the Community Oncology Research Program (NCORP). By creating a federated infrastructure of biorepository sites and a unifying informatics platform for tracking biospecimens across them, the ABBR is uniquely poised to collaborate with other NCI programs, whenever biorepository or biospecimen resources are required for specific translational cancer research efforts.
The mission of the Alliance Biorepository and Biospecimen Resource (ABBR) is to safeguard and facilitate the use of patient tissue and fluid biospecimens for practice changing cancer research. The ABBR helps to collect, process, and store biospecimens from patients enrolled on NCTN Alliance clinical trials. The ABBR distributes biospecimens for biomarker studies associated with Alliance clinical trials and for secondary studies proposed by the broader cancer research community. Members of the ABBR work with the NCTN and other NCI research networks, contributing scientific leadership to maximize the scientific impact of NCI biospecimen resources. Encompassing multi-PI, multi-institutional pathology and biobanking expertise and hundreds of thousands of high quality, densely annotated biospecimens from several decades of clinical trials, the ABBR represents an unequaled academic resource for translational cancer research.
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