Indiana University Melvin and Bren Simon Cancer Center

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You are here: HOME > Researchers > Facilities > Tissue Procuremend and Distribution

Tissue Procurement and Distribution Core

The Tissue Procurement and Distribution Core specializes in the collection, preservation, and distribution of human solid tumor and hematological malignancy tissues for the IU Simon Cancer Center research community. It also assures quality control of these tissues, maintains essential integrity of the specimen for clinical care of the donor, and maintains donor confidentiality. The tissue bank is operated primarily for members of the IU Simon Cancer Center and researchers at Indiana University.

The tissue bank contains more than 3,000 specimens that represent most types of adult solid tumors and blood cancers. It also has select non-malignant tissue (for example, inflammatory bowel disease) and some normal tissue (such as breast, colon, prostate, lung, liver, kidney, heart, skin). Specimens are collected from patients undergoing surgery at IU Hospital. A significant number of other tissue specimens also are available to researchers. In addition, buccal swabs for genomic DNA and plasma for proteomics are being collected on patients with hematologic cancers.

Biospecimens are used in basic science projects and correlative laboratory studies associated with clinical research. Hematologic biospecimens are used for pre-clinical drug development in myeloma, CLL, and acute leukemia.

Any IU faculty members and CTSI researchers atacademic institutions within the state may request tissue. All requests must be approved by an advisory board composed of representatives from IU.

All patients whose tissue is included in the IU bank have signed an informed consent that has been approved by the IUPUI-Clarian IRB. This allows tissue bank personnel to obtain clinical follow-up. Investigators seeking to use tissue must have up-to-date biosafety training, sign the conflict of interest form, and have IRB approval for their individual project. In most cases, this approval is very simple as the patients have already been consented and no identifiers will be given to the investigator. Generally, for IU tissue, the IRBcurrently requires only expedited review and for anonymous tissue, exempt approval will suffice.

The core also can assist investigators in fixation and processing tissues for cell lines, animal, and human tissues. Generalized histology services, which include frozen sections, common stains such as Hematoxylin and Eosin (H&E), unstained slides for immunohistochemistry and paraffin blocks, are also available.

The Tissue Procurement and Distribution Core is located in the CTSI Specimen Storage Facility in Joseph E. Walther Hall (RIII). Colleen Mitchell serves as the core's operations manager. She can be reached at 274-2213.