The goals of the Pathology Core are to collect, prioritize, distribute and interrogate both human and mouse models of prostate cancer. The mission of the tissue acquisition component of the Pathology Gore is to: provide a reliable and continuous source of well characterized and annotated prostate tissue samples for evaluation of tumor markers and other studies;minimize investigator efforts needed to obtain human tissues;Improve the quality of human tissues collected from donors after appropriate consent;assure that the tissues meet stated diagnoses;minimize the chances of a diagnostic specimen being compromised by improper handling;foster collaborative efforts between basic scientists and clinicians by providing hands on expertise with all aspects of tissue processing including histology, immunohistochemistry, imaging, etc.;and ensure fair distribution of tissue under the direction of the SPORE Executive Committee. The Core has also constructed microarrays from over 1000 cases of prostate cancer with clinical follow up, including normal and malignant tissues from patients of diverse ethnic backgrounds. The Core collects and annotates diverse specimens including fixed and frozen tumor tissue, tissue mircroarrays, whole mounts, paraffin blocks, fresh tissue serum, plasma, urine, DNA/RNA, and fixed tissues from animal xenografts and GEM models. Services include Veridex CTC enumeration, CTC enumeration and characterization in collaboration with the Tseng lab, quantitative immunohistochemistry, laser microdissection, FISH and double and single immunofluoresence. The Core works closely with clinical investigators to collect, process and examine critical biomarkers associated with those clinical trials. The core provides expertise with diagnosis of prostate neoplasia in biopsies and prostatectomy specimens as well as multiple murine models of prostate cancer. The Core works closely with other SPORE sites to standardize assays of common importance and works closely with the Statistics and Bioinformatics Cores linking tissues to the prostate clinical database and to national tissue banks (CaBIG). The Pathology Core is heavily invested in developing and acquiring new technologies to solve problems related to the procurement and analysis of all pathological specimens.
The pathology core is an essential component of the projects, all of which have a translational arm requiring analysis of human and animal tissues. The Core makes available fresh, frozen, and fixed biopsy and prostatectomy tissues, provides DNA and RNA from cancer and normal tissues, and assists with performing immunohistochemistry, Veridex CTC enumeration, laser capture microscopy, whole slide scanning, and image analysis. The Core also is essential for collaborative research involving evaluation of murine models of prostate cancer.
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