The Vancouver Prostate Centre has a tumour bank that contains well over 2000 prostate cancer specimens (both fresh frozen and paraffin embedded). This tumour bank has an integrated database that is overseen by a full-time coordinator, along with a full-time research pathologist and staff.

In particular the collection includes the world’s largest repository of the following:

• pre- and post-treated prostate cancers
• tumours stratified from low to high risk (matched primary and metastatic tumours)
• treatment resistant cancers fully annotated for previous therapies, responses, stage, and prognostic indicators, biomarkers etc.

We have an established bank of more than 700 human radical prostatectomy specimens stored at -156 degrees centigrade and in paraffin blocks, as well as more than 1,000 archived prostatectomy specimens from patients with no prior hormone therapy, or after variable periods of pre-treatment with one, three, or eight months of neo-adjuvant hormone therapy prior to surgery.

We also have constructed a number of tissue microarrays (TMA’s) from post-treated cancer specimens that are useful for high throughput validation of transcriptional profiles.

For more information, visit PCTRIADD's Bio-Repository page.