BTRF services:

  Biospecimen procurement, processing & banking

  • Prospective & banked human tissue procurement from remnant clinical specimens
    • Surgical resection specimens
    • Autopsy material
  • Sample pick up and transport
    • Clinical trial support
    • Banking for investigator-specific protocols
    • For information on phlebotomy services click here
  • Enzymatic dissociation & viable freezing of tissue samples
  • Peripheral blood leukocyte (PBL) Ficoll isolation & viable freezing
  • Extraction of nucleic acids and protein from tissue samples
  • Banking of specimens for individual investigators

Histology-based research techniques*
  • Paraffin embedding of human tissue specimens
  • Histologic sectioning of fixed human tissue specimens
  • Cryostat sectioning of frozen human tissue specimens
  • Cytospin preparation of fluids containing cells
  • Histology-guided macrodissection to enrich for specific cell types
  • Laser microdissection
    • Training on instrument
    • Equipment usage
  • Immunohistochemistry
    • Performed on human and animal tissues
    • Panel of "standard" antibodies
    • Custom immunohistochemistry (Investigator-supplied antibody)
  • Custom tissue microarray manufacture
  • Tissue microarray of the most common human carcinomas (159 cases)
In progress:
-Bank of human serum samples
-Bank of purified RNA, DNA and protein from human tumors
-Reverse phase protein microarrays

  * For most histology services involving animal tissues, please use the Research Histology core facility.