Translational Genome Research Network in Pancreatic Cancer

Coordinator:		Dr. Nathalia Giese
Institution:		Universitätsklinikum Heidelberg
Homepage:		www.klinikum.uni-heidelberg.de

TP1 will generate standardized resources and provide services important during the validation and functional characterization processes at the various levels of the IG. Major TP1 constituents are:
1) Provision of a central anonymized specimen data bank to be accessed by all partners of the IG containing standardized sets of histopathological and clinical information
 2) Provision of specimen of fresh-frozen and paraffin-embedded surgically resected tissues derived from patients with different forms and stages of pancreatic cancer, chronic pancreatitis and organ donors
 3)  Establishing a prospective collection of simultaneously sampled specimen such as tissues, fine needle aspiration biopsies (FNAB), sera and urine from patients with PDAC and chronic pancreatitis
4)  Provision of human xenograft tumors
5) Standardized histological diagnosis by expert reference pathologists
6) Provision of special services for target validation such as immunohistochemistry, in-situ hybridization, microdissection, qRT-PCR and preparation of tissue microarrays from human tissues
The immediate availability of large collections of patient materials collected under standardized conditions is crucial to ensure rapid progress within the individual TPs. Furthermore, pathological expertise is equally important to guarantee superior quality and reproducibility of data relying on the study of primary tissues. Lastly, continuous access to new material will allow replenishing patient sample collections, increasing flexibility to adapt sample collection strategies to the needs of the individual TPs. Within TP1, the major German centres for pancreas surgery and pancreas pathology are joined together to provide the various resources and services important to the success of the IG. Groups from the surgical and pathological departments in Heidelberg, Bochum, Munich and Marburg will provide their already collected biological samples including clinical information and will continue to collect the various patient materials. The pathology department of Kiel will provide referential pathological service. Furthermore, the pathology departments in Kiel and Bochum will provide expert microdissection, tissue microarrays, immunohistochemistry and in-situ hybridization services. Special care will be taken for standardization of the procedures at all sites of the TP1 platform, in particular regarding sampling, verification of pathological diagnoses and recording of clinical information.