World Trade Center Tissue Biobank

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Immediately after the 9/11 terrorist attack, concerns were raised about the short and long term effects of exposure to the World Trade Center (WTC) dust cloud. Responders and residents were exposed to a complex mixture of toxic chemicals that included multiple known and suspected human carcinogens which could increase cancer risk. For most solid cancers, the relevant time window between exposure and cancer occurrence is approaching right now, 16 years after the event. The WTCHP has completed the follow-up of all the respondents up to 2014, and has confirmed a possible increase in thyroid and prostate cancers, where the possibility of a biologically more aggressive cancer type due to the nature of the environmental exposure in this population has not been discounted. In parallel with the biomarkers human studies, experimental animal studies of the systemic and local effects of controlled exposure to WTC dust have been conducted, to complement and help interpreting the epidemiological and biomarkers observations reported in the WTC responders cohort. We propose to update the existing biobank of human solid organ tissues from each cancer diagnosed among the WTC rescue and recovery workers, and to include a central repository of tissue samples from various relevant organs from all the animal experiments involving exposure to WTC dust, in order to facilitate and promote future clinical research and translational studies on cancer etiology, cancer biology and cancer outcome. This project proposes to update the central repository of cancer tissue samples and adjacent normal tissue from each solid cancer diagnosed among the WTC Health Program (WTCHP) participants. Relevant information from pathology and cytology reports from each cancer is also centrally stored. This repository has the capability to be linked with the main WTCHP data set containing clinical, epidemiological and exposure information, as well as with the peripheral blood sample collected from the participants at the time of inclusion in the WTCHP. We also propose to initiate and manage a central repository of tissue samples from various organs from rodents exposed to WTC dust at Mount Sinai and NYU. Relevant information from pathology reports will also be centrally stored, along with details of the exposure amount and duration, and of the experimental design. We establish the tissue bank as a resource for the science community, by defining a process for qualified applicants to request available samples for research use, and for linking with the epidemiologic and clinical information in the database. A plan for the evaluation of the tissue bank usage and success, as measured by publications and funding obtained by investigators using the samples, is also included.