National Cancer Institute
Groundbreaking efforts such as Genome-Wide Association Studies and TCGA depend heavily on the quality of their specimens, which must be obtained, staged, annotated, stored, and distributed according to the highest standards. Organizing those tasks, on a national level, falls to NCI’s Office of Biorepositories and Biospecimen Research (OBBR).
Considerable variability exists in the collection, processing, storage, and annotation of the majority of human specimens available for research. To solve this critical problem, NCI is leading an effort to ensure that human biospecimens available for cancer research are of the highest quality. The first step was development of the NCI Best Practices for Biospecimen Resources, a document that spelled out procedures for standardizing biobanking practices and operations. The second stage is to develop and implement state-of-the-science data-driven procedures to provide human biospecimens that have molecular integrity and clinical relevance for cancer research and treatment.
OBBR’s director, Carolyn Compton, M.D., Ph.D., and her staff are currently developing the concept for a new national biobank: a unique, non-profit public resource that will ensure the adequate and continuous supply of human biospecimens and associated measurable, high-quality data, all acquired with the highest ethical standards.
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