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.
