Bladder cancer biorepositories in the "-omics" era: Integrating quality tissue specimens with comprehensive clinical annotation

Abstract

Advances in genomic platforms have led to the need for well-characterized, high quality biospecimens for research. Bladder cancer, despite being a major epidemiological concern, has been under-represented in genomic programs due to unique challenges in collection of clinical informatics and tissues. Currently no targeted therapy exists for management of the disease. We report our experiences and lessons learnt in establishing an integrated model of bladder cancer that uses a dedicated bladder cancer team and relational databases. It streamlines both clinical activity and serial harvesting of biospecimens to obtain tissue that is consistently suitable for high-throughput genomic research. Fre..