BTRF - SR Compnent

BIOREPOSITORY AND TISSUE RESEARCH FACILITY (BTRF) – PROJECT SUMMARY The Biorepository and Tissue Research Facility (BTRF) makes human biospecimens available for basic, translational, and clinical research. It is the major conduit through which human tissue specimens are transferred from the Pathology, Surgery, and other clinical departments to research labs at the University of Virginia Cancer Center (UVACC) and is the major processor of human biofluids (blood, urine, etc.) in support of clinical trials at the UVACC. The biorepository functions are supported by a robust informatics platform that is integrated with other clinical and research informatics resources. In addition, this facility provides standard histology services and complex histology-based analytic techniques for animal models of cancer as well as human tissues, including tissue microarray construction, laser microdissection, immunohistochemistry (including multi-color chromogens), RNA in situ hybridization, and digital slide scanning with automated image analysis. The BTRF provides expert histopathology support from Board-certified Anatomic Pathologists. The biorepository and analytic services are often vertically integrated with each other, including procedures in other Shared Resources, to allow for “one-stop shopping” for investigators carrying out translational or clinical cancer research. Examples include next generation sequencing or RNA microarray analysis carried out in the Biomolecular Analysis Facility from nucleic acids extracted from tissue samples by the BTRF; and circulating tumor cell analysis carried out in the Flow Cytometry Core from blood samples processed in the BTRF. BTRF services enable new insights into cancer disease mechanisms via the analysis of tissues and biofluids, assist in the discovery and validation of new clinical cancer biomarkers, and support clinical trials of therapies for cancer.