Dr. Claudio Fiocchi is Core Director. Dr. Florian Rieder serves as Associate Director, and Drs. Jean-Paul Achkar, Jennifer Ko and Amitabh Chak serve as Technical Directors. Goals of the Biorepository Core: The specific goals include: 1) Procure, process, and distribute tissue and cells from surgical specimens and biopsies, as well as serum, DNA and stools, from patients with gastrointestinal inflammation, cancer and controls for use in IRB-approved projects of DDRCC members; 2) Provide phenotypic, genotypic, clinical and demographic information of the biosamples; 3) Provide isolation, purification, culture and use of most types of gastrointestinal tract cells; 4) Advise, teach, and supervise investigators on principles, methods, analysis and experimental design; 5) Monitor Core services and continuously evaluate the needs of the DDRCC members to maximally benefit their research priorities, and 6) provide all above services in the most cost-effective and least time-consuming manner. Benefits of the Biorepository Core: During the first 4 years of funding, the objective evidence for the essential benefits of the Cleveland DDRCC Biorepository Core is the fact not a single investigator of the large DDRCC community has failed to receive the type, size or number of biospecimens, as well as the training and logistic support required for his/her studies. This success was achieved by the careful enactment of the specific goals. A new benefit of the Core is a state-of-the-art laboratory information system (LabVantage Solutions-LV), which tracks origin of samples, clinical information, genealogy of samples, and sample retrieval and distribution, and has connectivity to EPIC, Copath, Sunquest, etc. This new system greatly benefits Core users by assuring specimen quality, quick identification, diagnosis and delivery, and formal access to clinical data for interpretation of the experimental results. Finally, the Core has considerably expanded its technical services to include 1) generation of intestinal organoids, 2) organoid-derived epithelial cell monolayers, 3) isolation of mesenteric adipocytes, 4) single cell analysis (Fluidigm C1 and 10X Genomics platforms), 5) CyTOF and spectral flow cytometry systems, and 6) access to a large biobank of esophageal and colon cancer specimens. Overall, the Core benefits DDRCC members by providing unique and high quality biosamples and services.
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