The Tissue Bank and Pathology Core (TBPC) will function as a coordination center for the clinical specimens and pathological services required for the research projects on this grant. Research on the etiology and molecular basis of oral cancer has been limited by the lack of an organized system to provide specimens, patient information, and advanced tissue analysis services to laboratory investigators. The TBPC will build on the Core director's long-standing base of clinical expertise and interactions with research scientists to provide tissue specimens, patient data, histopathologic, and HPV typing services for the research investigators and Cell Culture Core of this oral cancer program project. The core will maintain and expand a bank of relevant oral cancer samples, the source of which will be the large number of patients seen at the multi modality head and neck cancer clinic based at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. Fresh tumor samples will be obtained from the operating rooms of the Beth Israel-Deaconess Medical Center, the Brigham and Women's Hospital, and the clinics at the Harvard school of Dental Medicine. Samples will include fresh, OCT (optimal cutting temperature)-embedded, and snap frozen specimens of squamous cell carcinomas, pre-neoplastic lesions, and normal oral epithelial tissue as well as blood cells and plasma from patients. Viable samples will be transported to the Cell Culture Core lab to permit initiation of new cell lines that will be used in the research projects. The Tissue Bank will also maintain a computerized Database which will include patient demographic as well as clinical data from all specimens obtained. The Pathology Unit will provide histopathologic diagnosis, immunohistochemical staining, and in situ hybridization services. A Virology Unit will provide human papillomavirus detection and typing services. The TBPC will, therefore, provide the experimental materials that the research projects will study to identify new potential molecular mechanisms of oral carcinogenesis and will also provide the data, the archived tissue specimens, and the advanced histopathologic techniques necessary to test hypotheses and confirm conclusions made by the research investigators about the roles of specific cell cycle and growth control mutations in the initiation and progression of oral cancer.
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