The Biospecimen Repository Core is designed to provide support to the basic translational research efforts of theSPORE. The Core will play a central role in collecting, annotating, storing, distributing, and tracking prostatecancer tissue and blood biospecimens from patients enrolled in research protocols. The Core will also addressthe need for interoperability with national efforts such as the National Biospecimen Network (NBN) and CancerBiomedical Informatics Grid (caBIG). Detailed biospecimen annotation, including documentation of preanalyticprocessing variables, pathology findings, and patient clinical history information will be recorded in robustrelational databases. We will conduct rigorous data quality assurance and quality control measures, andstandardized longitudinal follow-up of all consented patients with materials in the prostate biospecimenrepository. The Core will provide SPORE investigators with expert histopathological evaluation of tumor samplesboth from patients enrolled on research protocols and from xenograft models, The Core will also provideassistance in performing and interpreting immunohistochemical and in situ hybridization assays, in selectingtissue for microdissection and construction of arrays, and in collaborating with project leaders and theBiostatistics Core.The four key focus areas for the prostate SPORE Biospecimen Repository are high quality banked tissue(frozen and paraffin-embedded) and blood (serum and plasma), accurate and updated procedural, pathologic,and clinical annotation, efficient and effective distribution of biospecimens for use in research protocols, and arobust tracking system capable of monitoring biospecimens from the time of collection through utilization.Integrating these four components is a major goal of the Biospecimen Repository Core,Through the work of this SPORE, supported by the Biospecimen Repository Core, we hope to increase ourunderstanding of the clinical, biologic, and genetic basis of prostate cancer in an effort to improve patientoutcome, to facilitate a range of scientific activities that could lead to new genomic- and proteomic-basedinterventions for cancer, including target identification and validation, and to develop new biomarkers,diagnostics, and pharmacogenomic analyses. Furthermore, the Core aims will serve as a focal point to helpcombine and prioritize a variety of institutional pathology systems-related development efforts, and we plan todocument and publish our findings, standard operating procedures, and best practices, to better serve theresearch community.
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