Tissue Procurement and DistributionServices
The main service provided by the IU Simon Cancer Center Tissue Procurement Facility is to research investigators is access to quality-controlled tissues through a central facility. To provide this service, the facility:
- Obtains unfixed, remnant human tissue from routine surgical resections and autopsies;
- Maintains essential integrity of the specimen for clinical care of the donor, and
- Maintains donor confidentiality.
The facility has been developed to help investigators access frozen specimens. At this time, very few paraffin embedded blocks are stored as part of the frozen tissue bank. However, options exist for locating paraffin embedded blocks for research at Indiana University (see Additional Tissue Procurement Services below).
Additional Tissue Procurement Services
The facility can assist investigators in obtaining and processing tissues for nude mouse xenografting. Limited histology services, which include frozen sections, Hematoxylin and Eosin (H&E) stained and unstained slides and paraffin blocks, are also available through the Tissue Procurement Facility.
The IU Simon Cancer Center Tissue Procurement Facility has a limited supply of paraffin-embedded tissues. Investigators may check on the current status of what is available by contacting Carol Boyd at cboyd2@iupui.edu.
If your needs are not met by the IU Simon Cancer Center tissue facility, two alternative mechanisms can be explored by investigators:
- Contact Oscar W.Cummings, MD at ocumming@iupui.edu to identify a pathologist specializing in your area of interest. If collaboration with this pathologist is possible then:
- arrange for someone to pull the paraffin blocks
- contact Lee-Ann Baldridge (lhadley@iupui.edu) in the Immunohistochemistry Lab to arrange for the blocks to be processed and cut for immunohistochemistry.
- arrange for someone to read the specimens.
- Contact Günther Schadow at the Regenstrief Institute at gschadow@iupui.edu to determine if you can identify cases using the Specialized Pathological Information Network (SPIN) system to identify cases. This is a new initiative that is in evolution and may meet your needs depending on personnel availability.