Pathology Investigation and Resources Branch (PIRB)
Supporting human specimen resources and pathology investigation to facilitate research requiring patient samples.
Program Directors in the Pathology Investigation and Resources Branch (PIRB) of the Cancer Diagnosis Program (CDP) support discovery, translational, and cancer diagnostics research and resources.
Areas of Interest
PIRB’s activities include:
- Developing and supporting human biospecimen resources for the procurement, storage, and distribution of biospecimens for research
- Assisting investigators with locating and acquiring human cancer specimens required for research
- Providing pathology expertise and advice to researchers on human tissue specimen resources and sample preparation
- Providing pathology assessment and QA/QC for specimens on CDP/DCTD/NCI scientific initiatives
- Collaborating with investigators to optimize sample quality, identify optimal molecular QA/QC methods, and overcome challenges in molecular analysis of human samples
- Supporting the development of informatics tools to improve access to human specimens and associated clinical data for NCI funded biospecimen resources
Selected Initiatives
PIRB-supported resources
- The Specimen Resource Locator (SRL): a searchable website that maintains information about existing resources. The SRL matches researchers with appropriate resources for the acquisition of specimens.
- The NCI Tissue Expediter: an individual who assists investigators in locating appropriate resources as well as identifies potential scientific collaborations.
- Cooperative Human Tissue Network (CHTN): a unique NCI-supported network of academic institutions that operates as a procurement service to provide deidentified human tissue, blood and fluids from routine clinical procedures to investigators who request and utilize human biospecimens in their research.
- National Clinical Trials Network (NCTN) Biobanks: a network that receives, stores, and distributes human biospecimens collected on NCTN cancer clinical trials.
- NCI Early-Phase and Experimental Therapeutic Clinical Trials Biobank (EET Biobank): receives, processes, stores, and distributes high-quality, clinically annotated human biospecimens from cancer patients enrolled in NCI-supported Phase 0, I, and II ETCTN (Experimental Therapeutics Clinical Trials Network) trials. The collected biospecimens are currently available for distribution to qualified investigators conducting NCI-supported ETCTN clinical trials, as well as select non- ETCTN trials.