Tumor Banking for the Southwest Oncology Group

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DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): This application is being prepared by the Southwest Oncology Group (SWOG) in response to the NCI-issued RFA to provide and enhance the infrastructure needed to ensure the collection of, storage of and access to high-quality, well-annotated human specimens collected from and representative of the patient populations entered into NCI-funded clinical trials. The advent of powerful molecular technologies and the emergence of targeted therapeutics have opened the door to developing more effective and in some cases, individualized treatments of patients with cancer. Access to specimens with associated high-quality clinical, treatment, recurrence and outcome data is critical to developing and validating the tests needed for diagnosis, target identification and prediction of response to therapy. Developing and effectively utilizing cancer interventions based on the comprehensive analysis of critical pathways of cancer initiation and progression require access to biospecimens from patients treated in prospective randomized trials. High quality banks of uniformly collected specimens with validated clinical and outcome data are essential for the development and delivery o new diagnostic and predictive tools that are critical to eliminating the suffering and death due to cancer. Together with the various Disease and Correlative Science Committees and their clinical trials, we are developing multiple approaches to the collection and analysis of tumor-related biospecimens. Specific Aim 1: To provide high quality, well-annotated tissues and other biospecimens collected from and representative of the patients entered in NCI-sponsored clinical trials for research purposes. Specific Aim 2: To provide information about the specimen collections for potential research use. Specific Aim 3: To increase access to SWOG trial-related biospecimens based on specimen availability and the scientific merit of applications to use the specimens. Specific Aim 4: To work with the NCI and the other cooperative groups to implement the policies and procedures initiated by the Group Banking Committee (GBC). Specific Aim 5: To share data on both the material that is available in the SWOG biospecimens banks and the major scientific insights generated from the use of the specimens.