Tissue Acquisition and Banking Services (TABS)
Overview
Well-annotated human biospecimens form the critical bridge between basic science and clinical medicine, as biological paradigms delineated from cell lines and animal models can be validated in human specimens with minimal risk to human subjects. Most investigators rely on core facilities to access human biospecimens; at the NYU Cancer Institute, the Tissue Acquisition and Banking Service (TABS) serves this vital function.
TABS coordinates sample acquisition, storage, and retrieval services for relevant human tissues. TABS personnel acquire fresh frozen specimens from the surgical pathology suite and formalin-fixed paraffin embedded (FFPE) specimens from pathology archives (both from consenting patients) to be disbursed to investigators. The samples may be disbursed as pieces of fresh frozen tissue, frozen sections, or unstained paraffin sections.
TABS provides microtomy of paraffin-embedded samples and OCT embedding and cryosectioning of frozen human samples. Although TABS is currently focused on organ-specific programs at the NYU Cancer Institute, it can acquire all types of tumors if requested by an investigator with an IRB-approved protocol.
Access to Services and Banks
Biospecimen Access and Biospecimen Request Form
Consent and Brochure
It is required that both consent forms are given to the patient.
Contact the facility with specific requests and questions.
Organ-Specific Tissue Banks
The NYUCI currently has six organ-specific tissue banks with an extensive inventory of well-annotated specimens and follow up information:
The Breast Tissue Bank maintains breast and gynecological tissue samples, a breast-cancer-specific database, and an anatomic pathology database.
The Gynecology Tissue Bank consists of specimens from over 200 patients. More than 400 OCT embedded frozen tissue samples have been collected, along with over 50 fresh-frozen tissue samples.
The Prostate Tissue Bank part of the National Cancer Institute Cooperative Prostate Cancer Tissue Resource (CPCTR), provides both fresh and paraffin-embedded prostate cancer and control tissues, with relevant clinical data.
The Neuro-oncology Bank obtains and archives fresh tissue samples from patients with primary and recurrent disease, as well as brain tissue from patients who had surgery for intractable epilepsy, trauma, or other non-malignant disorders.
The Thoracic Oncology and Mesothelioma Bank collects plasma, serum, matching tumor and normal specimens, and peripheral blood monocytes from patients having thoracic operations.
The Melanoma Bank has developed a comprehensive database incorporating detailed clinical and pathologic information on patients with melanoma, along with their tissue and blood specimens. With patients’ informed consent, biospecimens from within and outside of NYU Langone Medical Center, clinicopathological data, and follow-up information are collected via developed protocols. As of November 15, 2008, the Melanoma Bank had accrued clinicopathological information and biospecimen samples from 1,052 melanoma patients.
The Thyroid Bank is an important resource which has recently been established and has been actively accruing patients using the IRB-approved TABS protocol. Tissue samples from thyroidectomy specimens with malignant and benign lesions are banked for future research. The Thyroid Bank currently has samples accrued from 161 patients, of which 93 (58%) are under the age of 50. All tissues stored in the bank undergo rigorous quality control and are available for IRB-approved research. In addition to clinical information, blood samples are expected to be collected in the future.
The Gastrointestinal Tract (GI) Bank consists of samples from over 100 patients with gastrointestinal malignancies. Patients are consented with the NYUCI TABS protocol. Samples are collected both at Tisch and Bellevue Hospitals; large numbers of samples of GI cancers of different stages are available for research, including liver, colorectal, and hepatocellular carcinomas. It is also our goal to expand this bank by including blood samples collected at the time of primary diagnosis and to be able to prospectively follow these patients to obtain outcomes data.
Customized services can be provided and existing services varied according to the needs of the research community.
