The purpose of the NMVB is to provide an ongoing resource for investigators involved in the research of mesothelioma. It is intended to provide biospecimens (blood, plasma, white blood cells, and normal and mesothelioma tissues) together with demographic data (age, sex, race, occupational history and other epidemiologic information), and clinical data (stage, treatment and survival information). The University of Pittsburgh (U Pitt) has been the coordinating site and annotated biospecimens collection has been done at primarily three sites, New York University (NYU), University of Pennsylvania (U Penn) and the University of Pittsburgh (U Pitt).
Our specific aims are: 1) To continue to serve the needs of the mesothelioma cancer research community by collecting tissue, blood and clinical data and providing efficient access to these federated resources. We will continue to document and continually evaluate the usefulness of the NMVB to the scientific community and measure its impact in collaboration with the Mesothelioma Foundation. 2) To expand the NMVB to the Roswell Park Cancer Institute (RPCI) as a collection site. 3) To automate the biospecimens annotation through electronic extraction of clinical and pathology data from electronic health records (EHR) and cancer registry systems. To do this we will adopt the Text Information Extraction System (TIES) a comprehensive pipeline for processing text documents into structured data which can be linked to biospecimens and easily searched by investigators. We will also be adopting i2b2 (Informatics for Integrating Biology and the Bedside) and SHRINE (Shared Health Research Information NEtwork) to maximize the efficiency of annotating and querying. This will leverage the existing funding from three other funding sources (NCATS, NCI and PCORI)} already in place at NYU, U Penn and U Pitt. Narrative The National Mesothelioma Virtual Bank (NMVB) provides cost-effective access to patient data and biospecimens including fresh frozen, paraffin embedded and blood products to mesothelioma researchers. The NMVB provides access to clinical data and biospecimens on this rare malignancy, thus expanding scientific discovery and effective treatments to benefit the mesothelioma research and patients affected by this almost uniformly fatal, asbestos related disease.
