The continued goal of Prostate SPORE Tissue/Informatics Core is to collect biological material with associated clinical information to facilitate translational research. The Tissue Core places patient confidentiality and clinical care as a top priority. As a coordinated effort between pathology, urology, medical oncology, and SPORE researchers, the Core has a developed a unified bioinformatics infrastucture that provides researchers a wide range of annotated samples. To date, detailed information exists on over 2000 radical prostatectomy patients operated on at the University of Michigan between 1994-present. The specific goals of the Tissue Core include: (1) Protection of patient welfare. The highest priority is given to assure that no research protocol compromises pathology diagnosis or tumor staging. Patient confidentiality is maintained through use of an IRB-approved database protocol (2) Acquisition and processing of prostate tissues for research. The Core assures that the widest range of prostate tissues and derived biomolecules (i.e., protein, DMA and RNA) are available from several established and new sources. These include benign Drostate tissue from patients without any known prostatic disease (cystoprostatectomy specimens and transplant donor prostates), clinically localized prostate cancer (U of M), and metastatic hormone refractory prostate cancer (Rapid Autopsy Program). (3) Maintenance of clinical and pathology data with links to molecular studies. The Tissue/Informatics Core will continue to expand the detailed clinical and pathology database conforming to the National Cancer Institute's Common Data Elements (CDE) guidelines, permitting queries between molecular findings and clinically relevant outcomes. The Core is also an adopter in the caBIG/IPBS initiative. (4) High quality pathologic review of prostate tissues. Expert pathologists assure uniform review of prostate tissue samples. (5) Pathology consultation for the purpose of designing translational research projects. This service focuses on determining the types of tissues and amount required for the successful completion of the projects. (6) Quality assessment of prostate tissues and clinica data. The Tissue Core staff regularly evaluates frozen and formalin fixed tissues for adequacy. (7) Development of technology appropriate for pathology based translational research. In this renewal, FISH based strategies are presented to evaluate genomic biomarkers using tissue microarrays. Technologies such as quantitative real time PCR and laser capture microdissection protocols will be refined. In summary, the Tissue Core will provide SPORE investigators with a wealth of carefully annotated samples for translational research, while maintaining the highest level of clinical care.
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