Translational Research Central Services

PROJECT SUMMARY/ABSTRACT The Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center (SKCCC) Translational Research Central Services (TRCSC) Shared Resource (SR) was established in 2018 to consolidate newly developed services with several existing, restructured shared resources from across the SKCCC to provide multiple highly specialized services to support investigator-initiated clinical research in the development, implementation and coordination of specimen procurement and immune monitoring in conjunction with clinical trials. These specialized services, under one management and quality infrastructure, are linked by common workflow procedures, quality policies and a dedicated scheduling system designed to coordinate the SR service team activities requested by investigators for study patient timepoint visits along each stage of the process—from specimen procurement design and implementation to final data analysis (assays)—ensuring high quality and consistency over time. Coordinated integration of the SR service teams facilitates real-time analysis and reporting of fresh specimen immunologic monitoring results to provide rapid feedback to investigators and fast-tracks the rate of scientific progress. Standardized and centralized approaches to specimen procurement and immune monitoring are critical for institutional and multicenter collaborations. The TRCSC SR provides the necessary infrastructure to ensure quality control with documented, consistent and reliable chain-of-custody handling of specimens from clinics to the TRCSC SR labs required for optimal specimen quality over time that is difficult to maintain in research labs. The TRCSC SR makes it possible for all SKCCC Members to participate in clinical research regardless of where they see patients (main medical campus or Johns Hopkins Health System off-site clinics), whether they have access to wet labs or whether they have the personnel with technical expertise to perform the various activities required for participation in studies with correlative specimens. SKCCC Managed Shared Resource Reporting Period: Jan. 1, 2020, to Dec. 31, 2020