Research is the key to find the causes and effective treatment of cancer. Scientific advancement into genomics and proteomics allows researchers to study the molecular makeup of the tumour and translate the knowledge into practical applications to improve clinical outcomes of patients. Often such studies rely heavily on the analysis of a large number of human tumour tissues, which allows scientists to gain a more complete picture of the genetic mapping of the disease across the population.
The Molecular and Clinical Pathology Research Laboratory (MaCH R) Tumour Bank was established in 1991, originally as the Princess Alexandra Hospital Tumour Tissue Bank. Our vision is to provide researchers and clinicians with high quality tissue and clinical data to facilitate cancer research. The Tumour Bank allows researchers access to tissues where patient consent and appropriate ethics approval has been obtained.
During the past 19 years, over 4500 patients have voluntarily contributed tumour specimens for cancer research. The MaCH R Tumour Bank contains over 40 different tissue types and over 130 different diseases. Where possible matching non-tumour tissue are also collected. Our fresh frozen samples are ideal for RNA and DNA extraction. With most cases, formalin fixed paraffin-embedded tissues and OCT embedded tissues are available for general histology, immunohistochemistry, in-situ hybridisation and laser capture microdissection. Blood collection has also been included recently into practice, which provides researchers more options of sample types. Additional information on clinical background and pathology may be available on request, within the confines of patient confidentiality.
Operation of the MaCH R Tumour Bank is conducted under international codes of ethics research practice as set out by the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) and the Metro South Health Service District Human Research Ethics Committee.
