A MEDICAL CENTER NETWORK FOR OPTIMIZED LUNG CANCER BIOSPECIMEN BANKING

Background: High quality biospecimens are difficult for biomedical researchers to obtain, and this difficulty is a bottleneck in translational lung cancer research.Objective: To create a Lung Cancer Biospecimen Resource Network (LCBRN) that will collect, annotate, store, and distribute human lung cancer biospecimens in a manner that embraces the highest ethical standards of human subjects research, that conforms to the best practices of biorepository science, and that furthers basic, translational, and clinical research in the understanding, diagnosis, and treatment of this disease.Specific Aims:1) Create a Coordinating Center at The University of Virginia to support the LCBRN based on the protocols, procedures, and experience of the National Cancer Institute's Cooperative Human Tissue Network.2) Create Biospecimen Resource Sites at The University of Virginia, the Medical University of South Carolina and Washington University in St. Louis that will obtain tissue and biofluid specimens of high quality from subjects with lung cancer that agree to participate.3) Create a centralized bank of high quality tissue, blood, urine, bronchoscopic washing, and saliva samples from lung cancer subjects that are annotated to clinical, laboratory, and radiographic data in a centralized digital data management platform based on the Caisis biorepository module.Study Design:1) Identify lung cancer subjects in thoracic surgery and oncology clinics for informed consent.2) Procurement of pre-operative and post-operative blood, saliva, and urine.3) Procurement of pre-operative bronchoscopy washings.4) Procurement of remnant neoplastic and non-neoplastic tissue from surgical resection specimens.5) Annotation of samples with clinical staging, radiology results, pathology results, and clinical follow up in a centralized secure biorepository management system.6) Transfer of specimens to a centralized bank at the LCBRN Coordination Center7) Histologic and molecular quality control of tissue specimens.8) Histology-guided subaliquoting of frozen tissue with high tumor density.9) Tissue microarray creation in support of discovery science.Innovation: This approach will create the first national lung cancer biospecimen resource outside of a clinical trials network that will be available to all biomedical researchers and that has expert level histopathology guidance for quality control and tissue distribution.Impact: The outcome of this project will be a bank of high quality and highly annotated tissue and biofluid samples from lung cancer patients that will support research into the molecular basis of this disease, the discovery of diagnostic and prognostic biomarkers, and the validation of new biomarker assays.Focus Areas:This proposal supports the following Lung Cancer Research Program Areas of Emphasis:1) Identification and development of tools for screening or early detection of lung cancer.2) Understanding the molecular mechanisms that lead to clinically significant lung cancer.3) Identification of the mechanisms that lead to the development of the various types of lung cancer.