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• Children's Cancer Institute Tumour Bank

Children's Cancer Institute Tumour Bank

Children's Cancer: Childhood cancer remains the most common cause of death among Australian children. Whilst childhood cancer represents only 1% of the cancer burden in NSW, improvement in treatment outcomes for children has wide-ranging and enduring benefits for the community in terms of years-of-life saved and improved quality of life for families. Translational cancer research is the key to further improving treatment outcomes through the evolving practice of personalised medicine. This approach to treatment advances depends on the availability of human tumour tissue and matched clinical data. Thus, a comprehensive and stream-lined tumour banking system for accessing tissue samples from NSW childhood cancer patients will underpin progressive improvements in their survival. Children’s Cancer Institute Tumour Bank together with The Children’s Hospital at Westmead Tumour Bank are bio-repositories and data-banks focused on the collection of tumour-related paediatric bio-specimens and associated annotated clinical data. The tumour banks aim to provide cancer researchers with ethically approved projects, de-identified tumour bio-specimens of a high quality, diversity and integrity. These specimens are well annotated with clinical data obtained by dedicated tumour bank staff members who follow a stringent set of standard operating procedures and ethical guidelines. This is the collaboration between scientists and clinicians to facilitate "translation" of molecular, cellular or genetic research findings into improvements in diagnosis, treatment or prevention of cancer.