Home Tissue Repositories Materials

What materials do research repositories collect and provide?

• Surgically resected diseased and healthy tissue (fresh-frozen).
  
  
• Blood samples
  
  
• Formalin-fixed, embedded tissue; i.e. paraffin blocks
  
  
• Derivative products from tissue, such as DNA, RNA, protein, metabolites, and tissue micro-arrays
  
  
• Materials usually excluded are: fetal and reproductive tissues, transplantable tissue, and cadaver tissue.

The quality of tissue is as important as the type because poor quality tissue does not yield the sorts of derivative products most research requires (in particular RNA). If the tissue is not quickly frozen, its labile bio-molecules will degrade, making the tissue essentially worthless for most research.