We propose to expand the Western Pennsylvania Genitourinary Tissue Bank (PA GU TB) to provide a national resource to provide large numbers of paraffin and frozen tissues from normal, organ- confined and metastatic prostate specimens from biopsies, prostatectomies and autopsies from patients in the Pittsburgh area. An extensive Outreach program is proposed to increase the numbers of patients participating in the tissue bank and warm autopsy programs by nearly threefold from its current level of accrual. A specific plan has been developed and will focus in targeting minority patients and their participation on the program. The PA GU TB will also provide researchers unique value added tissue resources that will enable the molecular classification of prostate cancer. Some of these resources include a primary prostate cell culture facility, a laser microdissection facility and a molecular libraries bank of highly characterized and annotated cDNAs. These molecular libraries will be derived from early stage disease as well as from patients with advanced prostate cancer thru a warm autopsy program. The entire program will be outfitted with a tissue bank that will include a highly structured prostate cancer database on all patient samples included in the tissue bank. The database will be available through a web based, graphical user interface and will allow users to view microscopic images of prostate tissues via a """"""""virtual microscope"""""""" like web-based viewer. A sophisticated website strategy will be developed, as well as a portal (gateway to information) called ProstateHealth. org, to allow for marketing and sending/receiving of information related to tissue requests from researchers. Drs. Robert Getzenberg (Basic Research), Joel Nelson (the new Urology chair) and Donald Trump (Oncology) will act as consultants to the project. The purpose of this proposal is to provide prostate cancer researchers with a next-generation tissue banking resources to catalyze research innovations in prostate cancer biology, detection and treatment.
