NERVOUS SYSTEM TUMOUR BANK
Welcome to the Nervous System Tumour Bank (NSTB). Our goal is to provide neurosurgical operative specimens for basic science research. We provide flash frozen specimens with corresponding clinical and pathological data to facilitate research under full Tri-Council Policy Statement, Good Clinical Practice guidelines.
Research on brain tumours depends on the availability of human brain tissue. Although other research models have been developed, none completely reproduce the pathophysiology of human brain tumours. Thus, demand for tissue banks have grown over the years. Many tissue banks collect an assortment of tumour tissue however we specialize in Central Nervous System/Peripheral Nervous System tumours and with well over “4,000 records in our database.”
NEURO-ONCOLOGY RESEARCH, TUMOUR TISSUE RESOURCE
The demand for tissue banks has grown with rapid advances in basic research. This has occurred in conjunction with the development of molecular assays, which have made it possible to examine gene structure and expression in very small samples of human tumour tissue. However, access to tumour tissue has always been difficult. It has become increasingly important to improve both the access to tissue and the quality control on the composition of these tissues. Therefore, specialized banks like the NSTB provide a unique addition to Neuro-Oncology research as a tumour tissue resource.
The Nervous System Tumour Bank is quickly becoming the recognized resource for research scientists to facilitate clinical, molecular, and translational research through the provision of well-characterize brain tumour specimens linked to clinical data such as pathology and radiology reports along with clinical history and symptomology.
The Nervous System Tumour Bank has the largest collection of brain tumour specimens out of all the other CVBTB sites (9,448 vials of samples and counting). We have started developing Tissue Microarrays (TMA) of specific tumours (e.g. GBM). This has allowed us to provide many researchers with approximately 100 GBM samples for histological analysis without depilating tissue bank supply. The NSTB is a proud member of the University of Toronto Brain Tumour Bank Network.
