• Abstract and Figures
• Public Full-text

IMPACTFACTOR impactfactor CLINICAL ONCOLOGY cancer samples as a considerable Investment biobanking – increased limitation to the research and, in par- ticular, to the rapid transfer of prom- returns from tissue samples ising laboratory findings to the clinic. To help bridge this gap, the Breast Cancer Campaign Tissue Bank was VALERIE SPEIRS AND ADRIENNE MORGAN set up in 2010 as part of a coalition of four core academic centres of ex- Researchers now expect that samples obtained from biobanks are cellence in breast cancer research accompanied with well-annotated clinical data. Opened in 2010, across the UK; Barts Cancer Insti- the Breast Cancer Campaign Tissue Bank takes this criterion a step tute, London, and the Universities of further: researchers obtaining tissues are required to return the data Dundee, Leeds and Nottingham, in they generate from every sample back to the Tissue Bank. partnership with the National Health Service. The Tissue Bank is the first widely available specialist breast can- This article was first published inNature Reviews Clinical Oncology vol. 10 no. 3, and is published with 4 permission. © 2013 Nature Publishing Group. doi:10.1038/nrclinonc.2013.19 cer biobank in the UK. To make the best use of the tissues curated by biobanks, researchers re- iobanks are secure storage the first major biobank)1 in Bethesda, quire that tissues are accompanied by facilities that typically con- Maryland, and the Egyptian Mummy well-annotated data. Although there are tain biological samples ethi- Tissue Bank at the Manchester Mu- no universally agreed guidelines, this B 2 cally collected from human donors. seum, UK. In recent years, a number annotation is now routine practice for These samples are made available to of biobanks have been developed to most biobanks and usually includes an- the biomedical research community respond to the growing needs of the onymised information relating to each with the aim of helping to advance biomedical research community for tissue donor, such as date of birth and research into human disease. The greater access to human tissue sam- gender plus follow up and survival data. nature and purposes of biobanks can ples for laboratory-based research. More-specialised, disease-specific in- differ extensively, and include diverse In 2008, a gap analysis conducted formation is often also available. For examples such as the US Navy Tis- on behalf of the UK charity Breast breast cancer samples this expanded sue Bank (which was established in Cancer Campaign3 identified the lack information includes tumour type, tu- the 1950s and is widely regarded as of access to well-annotated breast mour grade, lymph-node involvement 48 I CancerWorld I May-June 2013 IMPACTFACTOR and hormone receptor status in addi- obtained from donated tissues to ben- tion to the information on disease-free efit future patients with breast cancer. survival and overall survival of the pa- The policy requires researchers Key points tient. However, the tissues represent who obtain tissues from the Tissue n Samples donated by patients to a rich source of data that is only gen- Bank to return data generated from biobanks are a very valuable re- erally revealed by investigators when every sample back to the curators of source for biomedical research using these tissues in their research. the Tissue Bank in its raw form within that potentially enable accelerated Currently, this type of data is usually two years.7 We reasoned this would translation of laboratory results to made available to the public via peer- give researchers sufficient time to the clinic reviewed publication, a process that complete their research on these tis- n Returning the data derived from is limited by the fact that published sues and publish their data, although such samples back to the biobanks studies tend to report ‘positive’ findings there is some flexibility in the time- offers an efficient way of mining because negative results are generally lines. To our knowledge, the Breast information from these samples, more difficult to publish.5 Furthermore, Cancer Campaign Tissue Bank is the adding considerable value to the the requirement to anonymise data in first biobank to operate a data-return biobank holdings research publications means that even policy, adding considerable value to positive data cannot be associated with our sample holdings. As outlined in the relevant individual tissues by fu- our consent forms, we do not return ture, we recognise this increase in val- ture researchers. As a result, potentially individual research findings to patients ue will not happen overnight; accumu- important data generated from tissues or their clinical team. We appreciate lation and maturation of data will be procured from biobanks is not routinely that many patients consider it their a slow process taking many years, but available to future researchers; certain- right to receive feedback of incidental remains a key component for research. ly not in a way that permits correlative findings and this topic has been – and Nevertheless, the more the Tissue analysis across a whole series of studies continues to be – debated extensively. Bank is used the more valuable its investigating the same tissue set. This To complement the data-return contents will become for researchers. loss of data association could result in policy, the Breast Cancer Campaign The processes we have adopted will unknown duplications of effort as well Tissue Bank also uses a purpose-built enable the efficient and co-ordinated as the wasting of the valuable tissue interoperable bioinformatics platform use of banked tissues, providing a rich resources, monies provided by funding that is freely available as an online re- source of data that will be invaluable bodies and efforts of the researchers. source.8 This tool enables the mining for the breast cancer research commu- During the establishment of the of data from the breast cancer litera- nity. We are keen that other biobanks Breast Cancer Campaign Tissue Bank ture and the integration of different follow the blueprint we have adopted we aimed to maximise the use of data types of ‘omics’ and clinical data with at the Breast Cancer Campaign Tis- derived from the available tissue sam- publicly relevant annotations from sue Bank as it offers a simple way of ples. In addition to acknowledging the various resources, including common adding extra value to the samples held value of a large tissue resource that portals such as the NIH’s National by biobanks. n could cater to the challenges of re- Center for Biotechnology Informa- Author affiliations search into tumour heterogeneity, we tion, Ensembl, UniProt and Reac- Valerie Speirs, Leeds Institute of Molecular Medi- also recognised that it was crucial to tome. Over time, this online resource cine, University of Leeds, UK; Adrienne Morgan, develop a solution whereby data gen- will enable additional mining of the Independent Cancer Patients’ Voice, London, UK erated using these tissues could be data arising from research using tis- Acknowledgements returned to the bank and made avail- sues obtained from the Breast Can- We thank all members of the Breast Cancer able to other researchers. We devel- cer Campaign Tissue Bank. By mak- Campaign Tissue Bank team, grant holders, staff members, patient advocates and the Operations oped this policy following discussions ing this information available to the Group. Most importantly, we thank the patients who with the UK patient advocate group wider scientific community these tis- have generously donated tissue to the Breast Cancer Independent Cancer Patients’ Voice,6 sues will gain even greater value. Campaign Tissue Bank. whose members expressed a desire to Much like in a normal bank, where Details of the references cited in this article can see the best possible use of the data investment portfolios take time to ma- be accessed at www.cancerworld.org/magazine May-June 2013 I CancerWorld I 49 .

Load more

  2

Copy Link