) UAB has extensive experience in collecting, processing, storing, and supplying a wide range of human tissues to support research in cancer and other diseases. Tissues are supplied in numerous conditions as needed and requested by the users of the facility including fresh, frozen, and paraffin processed. Tissue slides and other histology services also are provided; during the current grant period there has been a great increase in investigators requiring tissue sections in lieu of other forms of tissue to support their research. We are proposing to expand our services by offering microdissected specimens for investigators wishing to use sensitive PCR based technologies. Tissues obtained at the UAB associated hospitals are transferred on ice by its personnel to surgical pathology where excess tissues not required for diagnosis are obtained. Surgical pathologists associated with the UAB tissue resource facilities evaluate aliquots of all tissues supplied for research for quality and diagnostic accuracy. Currently tissues are collected and supplied to investigators when requested and we maintain no active tumor bank. For studies requiring information on clinical outcome, we propose to establish a bank of well characterized tumor specimens and matching normal specimens; aliquots of these could be supplied to investigators in the future with clinical data including information on clinical outcome. UAB has participated in the development of a comprehensive database that supports tissue resources by incorporating information on the tissue donor, tissue diagnosis and quality control, tissue processing and storage, investigator tissue requirements and usage of the tissues by researchers. Between October 1997 and September 1998, the facility provided 96 UAB investigators with 3289 human tissue specimens and 11,326 slides. Since 1978, our facility has provided approximately 59,448 tissue specimens, blocks, and slides to over 225 investigators at UAB. These tissues have been used in a total of 720 publications and 329 abstracts.
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