Biospecimen Services Shared Resource
The OSUCCC Biospecimen Services Shared Resource (BSSR) supports OSUCCC – James researchers by storing, organizing and dispensing biospecimens such as tumor and normal tissue, blood and serum samples, and associated clinical data.
One of the BSSR’s two arms focuses on the Total Cancer Care® (TCC) protocol; the other focuses on prospectively procured biospecimen samples. Prospectively procured biospecimen samples are obtained by the Ohio State Wexner Medical Center’s Tissue Procurement Service following a surgery at the OSUCCC — James.
The TCC Protocol
TCC is a universal consent and biorepository protocol that Biospecimen Services Shared Resource allows the collection of blood in conjunction with clinically indicated draws and remnant tissue from surgical procedures from patients 18 years of age and older, with and without cancer, who are seen at The James.
The protocol provides broad informed consent and allows access to pathologic and clinical data for the life of the patient. Patients can also be contacted later for clinical follow-up or to offer participation in clinical trials. Plasma, serum, DNA and snap-frozen tissue are stored at the BSSR biobank at Nationwide Children’s Hospital Biopathology Center, which is funded by the National Cancer Institute and approved by the College of American Pathologists.
TCC is the protocol used by the Oncology Research Information Exchange Network (ORIEN), a partnership among 11 North American cancer centers that was founded and is anchored by the OSUCCC – James and Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa, Fla. ORIEN was organized to speed development of targeted treatments and to more quickly match patients to clinical trials by sharing de-identified patient data.
For more information about the Biospecimen Services Shared Resource, visit cancer.osu.edu/research-and-education/shared-resources/biospecimen-services, or contact BSSR Director Heather Hampel, MS, LGC, at Heather.Hampel@osumc.edu or at 614-293-7240.
