Translational research requires access to appropriately consented and well-characterized human biosamples. Therefore, the Fox Chase Cancer Center (FCCC) established the Biosample Repository Core Facility (BRCF) in 1999/2000 to support this research. The BRCF is a CAP accreditation and CLIA-approved Facility that has two major functions: 1) BRCF staff identifies participants, administers informed consent for blood and tissue use, and collects blood samples and information on personal and family histories of cancer, clinical intervention, clinical outcomes, and lifestyle factors for use in research, and 2) BRCF staff processes and houses human biospecimens obtained through investigator-initiated studies. The FCCC has many funded research Programs which require access to biospecimens from large cohorts of properly consented individuals affected and unaffected with cancer. Programs include: i) clinical studies to assess genetic susceptibility in cancer prone-kindreds, ii) large scale genotyping studies to identify genetic modifiers of cancer risk, iii) pharmacogenomic studies to identify drug response and drug toxicity markers, iv) hormone and immune response studies to determine the role of psychological stress and breast cancer risk, v) smoking cessation studies using genetic modifiers to assess behavioral response, vi) hormone and genotype studies to predict cancer risks, vii) identifying plasma membrane proteins that are selectively expressed in lung or prostate cancer to identify new targets for the development of additional therapeutic monoclonal antibodies, and viii) studies of early detection of cancer by genetic, epigenetic, and proteomic approaches. The BRCF provides a centralized service for accrual, consenting, processing, banking, and/or distribution of human blood samples (e.g., whole blood, plasma, serum, platelet-rich plasma, platelet homogenates, red blood cells, leukocytes, lymphoblastoid cell lines, and DNA) and cancer history data to be utilized in genetic-, epigenetic-, and proteomic-related research. The BRCF currently houses more than 300,000 human biosamples and has served 28 (26 peer-reviewed funded) Fox Chase investigators across 12 Programs and the three Divisions since its inception at the time of previous Core renewal. Ninety-six percent (96%) of the BRCF's use is by peer-reviewed funded investigators.
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