Westmead Collection Centre

Site location: Westmead Hospital, Western Sydney Local Health District, NSW

Local contact: Dr. Rosemary Balleine

Date of operations (date of formal start of current bank operation): January 2006

Date range of cases: January 2006–present

Example input statistics:

Overall response to consent (Yes%/No%/Unknown %): 99% Yes

Total individual cases held: 800

% cases associated with fresh-frozen tumor biospecimens: 25%

% cases with paraffin embedded biospecimens: 97%

% cases with blood and blood derivatives: 80%

In your view, what are the most valuable/highest priority cases in your biobanks?

1) Cases with a full set of biospecimens i.e., frozen tissue, FFPE tissue and blood.

2) Cases with fully detailed clinical and treatment data.

3) Cases with the longest period of follow-up.

What are your major challenges?

1) Completing the collection of informed consent from donors in the midst of intense clinical activity.

2) Collecting follow-up information over a long period.

3) Balancing the competing demands of investigators who want to access specimens for immediate use, and retaining samples until long term follow-up data is available.

What would you do with $1 million to improve the value of your biobanks?

Invest in centralized high-throughput processing and basic analysis of biospecimens.