By Stephen Ornes
What Happens to a Donated Tumor?
Tissue banks may hold the key to cancer research, but can we overcome the obstacles to unlocking their full potential?
By Stephen Ornes
The NCI uses the term “pre-analytical variables” to refer to the many variations that may arise before a tissue is examined by a pathologist and is fixed or frozen. These include factors that come into play before surgery, like the type of anesthesia used, antibiotics that may have been given to the donor, and how long the blood supply was clamped during surgery. Pre-analytical variables arise after surgery as well, including the time between surgery and fixation and the fixation process itself.
Reducing the influence of pre-analytical variables requires both an understanding of cancerous tissue at a molecular level and the willingness of institutions to accommodate the needs of researchers. “What I think we’ll see in the future is standardization of the [fixing] process, where we’ll see the fixation of critical tissue portions in the operating room, or freezing tissue right in the operating room,” Rimm says.
Taking Matters Into Their Own Hands
It’s easy to imagine that once a tumor sample is fixed, it’s ready for research, and cancer investigators would collaborate in the spirit of conquering the disease. But that’s usually not the case. In general, researchers’ only access to usable tumor samples is from their own institutions.
To get around this roadblock, oncologist Anthony Tolcher set up his own tumor bank. Two years ago, Tolcher founded South Texas Accelerated Research Therapeutics (START) in San Antonio, Texas, which aims to accelerate the development of cancer drugs.
“Access to tumor biopsies is rarely available to the people developing the drugs,” he says. “We felt that we could actually make a difference by making [the tumor bank] open to other academic centers, and big and small pharmaceutical companies.”
Within the next two years, Tolcher wants to amass a collection of 10,000 tumor samples, most of which will come from START patients. He hopes to produce research-ready slides with breast and colon cancer tumor tissue later this year.
Tolcher likes the idea of a national resource, like the NCI’s planned Cancer Human Biobank, but he remains a little skeptical—and he’s not willing to wait and see if it provides everyone with access to high-quality specimens. “They can make whatever sort of statement they want, but if nobody shares material in the end, then there’s a problem,” he says. “We can’t let the usual bureaucracy get in the way of progress.”
Other institutions are also trying innovative new strategies in biobanking. The Susan G. Komen for the Cure Tissue Bank, originally called Mary Ellen’s Tissue Bank, was established by patient advocates at Indiana University in 2005.