© Oxford University Press 2006.
NEWS |
The European Commission May Network Tissue Banks to Boost Cancer Research, Promote Cooperation
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Inaccessible, poor quality, and insufficient numbers—scientists have complained for years about the state of tissue samples for research. The crisis is particularly acute in the cancer field. Scientists must search far and wide to gather enough patient samples for their research. But without standard protocols governing how to collect and store tissues, samples are often inconsistent and thus unusable.
"Biobanking of research tissues has never been done on a high quality level," said Mark Rubin, M.D., chief of urologic pathology at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston.
But the landscape is changing rapidly. As part of a global trend, many countries have either passed laws governing tissue collection and storage or launched efforts to make the process more uniform. Nowhere is this trend more apparent than in the European Union.
The Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm, Sweden, for example, has been collecting and bar coding tissue samples in a core facility
England's Example
France and Spain
Europe-wide Tumor Banks