Over the pst three years, the Baylor SPORE in prostate cancer Pathology Core has systematically developed the personnel, procedures and infrastructure required to procure, catalog and store large numbers of clinical specimens, both serum and prostate tissue. Through rigorously controlled procedures for specimen collection and processing followed subsequently by quality control analysis of those specimens, the Baylor Pathology Core has demonstrated its reliability in developing and maintaining this important resource. The Pathology Core investigators, in conjunction with the SPORE Scientific Directors, have also developed systems to regulate specimen disbursement to the large number of SPORE investigators utilizing this resource, ensuring that the appropriate numbers and types of specimens are available while developing priorities to guard the most valuable specimens for the highest priority projects. The Core has also provided routine processing of samples for SPORE investigators, including whole-mount processing and cancer mapping, frozen section and paraffin histology, image analysis, flow cytometry, electron microscopy, immunohistochemistry, and in situ hybridization. Building on these strong foundations, the Pathology Core will continue to procure and maintain the serum and prostate tissue bank, while working to improve its performance and expand its role in the SPORE research program. The Core will coordinate with research project investigators to aid in the collection of new types of specimens, including human plasma, buffy coat DNA/RNA, and lymphocyte cell lines from individuals from families with familial prostate cancer, as well as help coordinate the development of a mouse prostate cancer tissue bank using tissue from the two important SPORE animal model systems, the MPR system and the probasin targeted transgenic system. The Core is also poised to embark on a major new effort to harvest metastatic prostate cancer specimens, both hormone naive and hormone refractory, through a warm autopsy program as well as through collaborative associations with other institutions. Finally, the Core will also continue to integrate its functions more closely with the SPORE Prostate Information System (SPIS), streamlining the processes of procurement and disbursement of samples, providing widespread on-line access to the Pathology Core inventory of specimens with marched corresponding clinical information, and finally setting the stage for Internet accessibility of the Pathology Core inventory to other institutions interested in using those specimens for prostate cancer research.
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