1. Tissue Collection & Banking Facility
William E. Grizzle, M.D., Ph.D., Facility Director
Katherine Sexton, M.B.A., Asst. Director; Patty Williams, HT (ASCP), Lab Supervisor
Services and Operation
Specific Services Offered to the UAB Community
We operate as a prospective service to provide to UAB investigators remnant human tissue (neoplastic, normal, benign, or diseased) from routine surgical resections, autopsies, and other clinical procedures . Specimens can be provided fresh, frozen, in RNAlater, fixed, or as paraffin blocks or slides, as requested by the investigator. The facility exists to assure that UAB investigators have access to human tissues that are expertly collected by a facility that is experienced and incorporates standard operating procedures, quality control, and follows NCI and ISBER Best Practices for Biorepositories to assure reliable processing, storage, and distribution.
Specimens are collected, processed, stored, and supplied to support translational and other cancer-
related research.
Quality control (QC) examination is performed on frozen or paraffin sections of each aliquot of tissue
supplied to investigators to render a QC diagnosis of the aliquot provided for research.
Investigators can also be aided by pathological consultations in identifying appropriate tissues to
support their research.
We ensure that provision of human tissues for research meets ethical and regulatory requirements
and that patient welfare is protected.
Tissue Procurement: As a Shared Facility of the UAB Comprehensive Cancer Center (CCC), the facility prospectively collects remnant tissue samples from routine surgical resections and autopsies for members of the UAB CCC.
As the Southern Division of the Cooperative Human Tissue Network (CHTN), UAB is part of a national network of institutions networked together to provide prospectively collected tissue samples to researchers throughout the USA and Canada. The CHTN serves non-UAB CCC members, and if UAB researchers have a need for tissue samples beyond what can be provided locally, their requests can be networked with the CHTN to access additional tissue samples. (
Protocol Support: The TCBF provides support for UAB research protocols utilizing tissue handling activities. Support can include procurement of tissue, transport, handling, processing, storage, shipping/distribution and some clinical data management.
Histology: The TCBF includes a research histology lab that can provide routine histology services for human as well as animal tissues. Services include preparation of paraffin-embedded blocks, paraffin-embedded slides, frozen sections, routinely stained slides, or slides with special stains.
Banking: The TCBF can serve as a repository for special project tissue banking. The TCBF can serve as the repository for your collection, and/or our trained personnel can assist with the collection, processing and distribution of samples for your project. Repositories are tailored to meet investigator and protocol needs
Collaborative Activities: Collaborative activities are also available through the research laboratory of Dr. William E. Grizzle. These include immunohistochemistry, construction of tissue arrays, multiplex immnoassays, and pathologic diagnostic information studies beyond that provided in a typical pathology report.
Rationale and Value-Added
Processing Fees & Contact Info
Future Plans
Obtain and maintain biorepository accreditation by the College of American Pathologists (CAP).
Continue to improve operations based on emerging NIH, ISBER (International Society for Biological and Environmental Repositories) and CAP (College of American Pathology) standards.
Expand the training of all TCBF personnel by encouraging their completion of the course being developed by ISBER for Certified Biorepository Technicians.
Continue to work with the CCC Leadership, all CCC Program Leaders and leaders of other CCC Shared Facilities to (1) identify emerging needs and (2) keep them informed as to how the current and emerging TCBF technologies can better serve their needs.
Provides a wide-range of specimens (e.g., neoplastic, benign, diseased, normal) from multiple sources (surgical, autopsy, cytology, clinical pathology) for many different types of research.
Has supported studies that have resulted in publications as follows:
248 cancer-related publications
55 appeared in very high-impact journals
62 describe development of specific therapeutic strategies
Value-Added aspects include:
Centralization of services
Quality control
Customized patient and molecular information
Provision of samples from tissue using major new technologies
Education of investigators, mentoring and expert consultation
Optimized state-of-the-art, cost-effective tissue banking
$40 per sample (regardless of processing)
$20 for additional aliquots of the same tissue
$60 for chart review or patient follow-up
CONTACT INFORMATION:
Separate fees apply for :
Histology Services – contact Terri Staples at x or
Protocol Services – contact Kathy Sexton at x or
Collaborative Activities – contact Dr. William Grizzle at x or