Tissue Procurement Core

TISSUE PROCUREMENT CORE (TPC) SHARED RESOURCE: PROJECT SUMMARY The Siteman Cancer Center (SCC) Tissue Procurement Core (TPC) is a College of American Pathologists (CAP)-accredited shared laboratory resource that enables patient-based cancer research using human tissues and biofluids. The TPC provides highly cost-effective services for patient tissue and fluid specimen collection, processing, tracking, and storage in order to support institutional and multi-institutional, investigator-initiated therapeutic clinical trials. The TPC also provides biospecimen resources and expertise to rapidly transform basic science discoveries into clinically relevant translational cancer research. This includes simplified and transparent access to an archived collection of surgically resected frozen tumor and patient-matched non-malignant solid tissues (peripheral blood cells, serum, and plasma) from consenting cancer patients, tissue histology services and pathologist consultation, nucleic acid (RNA / DNA) isolation, and quality assurance. Over the past five years, the TPC has collected and processed over 200,000 human biospecimens for clinical trials and translational studies for SCC members. TPC-supported activities have resulted in more than 50 peer-reviewed publications, almost half of which have been published in high impact journals (Thomson Reuters impact factor of 10 or greater). The TPC has also contributed biospecimens and scientific leadership on a national scale to National Cancer Institute biospecimen-based initiatives such as the Clinical Proteomic Tumor Analysis Consortium (CPTAC), Specimen Resource Locator (SRL), and National Clinical Trials Network (NCTN). Over the next project period, continuing emphasis will be placed on developing and standardizing state-of-the-art biospecimen processing and storage methods for cell-free DNA, single cell analysis, exosomes, and metagenomics to support ‘next-generation’ translational cancer research.