See also our related blog for the Pediatric Preclinical Testing Initiative.

Sunday, May 20, 2012

Our thanks to the Biopathology Center!


We are grateful to the Biopathology Center, which is also the pediatric division of the Cooperative Human Tissue Network (CHTN), for the many ways in which they facilitate our research on Childhood Muscle Cancer (rhabdomyosarcoma) and Childhood Brain Tumors.  With high quality but ‘rare’ samples provided by the Biopathology Center, we have been able to publish dozens of studies.  The unique aspect of many tissues at the Biopathology Center is that samples can be cross-correlated to treatment outcome via the Biopathology Center’s other role as the Children’s Oncology Group Biorepository.  Simply put, we can tell if a potential drug target of interest is linked to survival of patients and we can prioritize our research accordingly.
    
The Biopathology Center is always also on the cutting edge of advances, including rapid yet user-friendly sharing of high resolution slides in an electronic scanned format and specialized, annotated tissue microarrays for specific diseases.  For autopsy-derived tissue, which may be the most important kind of tissue for scientists to study (see our peer-reviewed paper), the Biopathology Center has been a key strategic partner.