Rapid advances in technology and scientific knowledge have opened new opportunities for important discoveries in translational research. As a result, it is becoming increasingly important to link tissue characteristics of patients to demographic, pathologic and clinical records, without compromising patients' rights and confidentiality of medical records. This comprehensive approach to research would allow for significant progress in the study of cancer etiology, progression and prognosis from various disciplines at Mount Sinai Medical Center. The overall aim of this proposal is to establish the infrastructure for conducting cancer research with human specimens. The """"""""Cancer Resource: Pathology, Registry, and Biorepository"""""""" herein will build upon our existing infrastructure of colon and breast cancer familial registries, Tumor Registry and specimen banks.
The aims of the Cancer Resource will facilitate research ranging from basic science to translational research, and to large-scale molecular epidemiologic studies. Specifically, the objectives are: 1) to obtain presurgical consent from patients undergoing surgery for incident or suspected cancer (beginning with breast and colon cancer) to contribute to the DHRCC Data and Biorepository; 2) to establish a comprehensive database with information from consented patients related to pathologic, clinical and epidemiologic data. Follow-up status, conducted by the Tumor Registry, will also be included in this database; 3) to establish a biorepository containing banked serum, plasma and DNA from cancer and high- risk patients and healthy controls for use by investigators with proposals approved by the Advisory Committee, with detailed clinical, pathologic and epidemiologic data available on that population. Repository services (blood processing, aliquoting and storage) will be available for specimen banking for investigators with funded studies; 4) to establish a tissue repository, linked to patient records, with freshly harvested and paraffin-embedded specimens, and to provide histology services (sectioning, immunohistochemical staining and laser capture microdissection) at a reduced cost to cancer researchers. An Advisory Committee will be established to oversee the running of the Data and Biorepositories, and solicit and review the scientific quality of proposals planning to use tissue and blood specimens. This Shared Resource will facilitate ongoing and future studies related to cancer etiology, markers of cancer progression, and prognosis after cancer diagnosis. The availability of data on patient characteristics will be an invaluable resource for translational research using tumor and normal tissue and other biospecimens.
