Royal Prince Alfred Collection Centre

Site location: Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, Camperdown, Sydney

Local contact: Prof. C. Soon Lee

Date of operations (date of formal start of current bank operation): January 2007

Date range of cases: January 2007–present

Example input statistics:

Overall response to consent (Yes%/No%/Unknown %): 98% Yes

Total individual cases held: 550

% cases associated with fresh-frozen tumor biospecimens: 48%

% cases with paraffin embedded biospecimens: 80%

% cases with blood and blood derivatives: 85%

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

Cases with full complement of frozen tissue, paraffin embedded tissue blocks, blood samples and accurately documented clinical annotation.

What are your major challenges?

1) Accurate documentation of clinical information

2) Attracting reliable tumor bank officer (TBO) staff

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

1) Establish a cell bank, construct tissue microarrays and cDNA arrays. Would need to employ 2 research assistants to look after these aspects of the biobank.

2) Employ 2 junior TBOs to look after tissue banking aspects.

3) Employ one senior TBO to look after all of the above.

4) Engage pathologists on a fee for service basis to look into some of the pathological aspects of the bank – e.g. review slides, mark slides for TMA construction etc.