Specimens and Services
Tissue
Fresh tissue (tumor and normal):
- Dispersed to researchers between 20 minutes and three hours after surgical removal
- After pathologic evaluation, specimens are kept refrigerated in RPMI media until pick-up
- To be notified when pre-op consent is obtained from patients with tumors at sites of interest, please call 916-734-3026
Frozen tissue (tumor and normal):
- Dispersed to researchers within five working days after UC Davis Path Biorepository Utilization Committee approval (when applicable)
- Frozen tissues are stored at -150 C in a Panasonic cryogenic chest freezer in DNAase- and RNAase-free sterile vials
Biological fluids
Bone marrow aspirates:
- Dispersed to researchers within five working days
- Frozen at -70°C in DNAase- and RNAase-free sterile vials in a protective freezing solution to ensure cell viability
Serum and plasma:
- Dispersed to researchers within five working days
- Dispersed in 0.5 milliliter aliquots
- Coded specimens are stored at -70°C in sterile DNAase- and RNAase-free cryovials
Whole blood (pre- and post-op):
- Dispersed to researchers within 60 minutes of blood draw
Tissue microarray (TMA)
Selected organ sites:
- Unstained sections dispersed to researchers within five working days
- Existing library of cancer organ-site TMAs include breast, colon, kidney, lung, pancreas and many more; please contact the shared resource at 916-734-3026 for more information
Custom-made TMAs:
- Require several weeks for design, preparation of slides/blocks and construction
- Please contact the shared resource to discuss and design TMAs for specific research questions
Routine histology
- Dispersed and/or returned to researchers (excluding clinical trials) within five to ten working days
- Processing, embedding and sectioning of fixed wet tissue
- Hematoxylin and eosin (H&E) stained paraffin sections
- Unstained paraffin sections
Immunohistochemistry (IHC)
- Unstained sections on slides suitable for IHC
- IHC with commercially available/validated antibodies
- IHC on TMA sections
- Samples are dispersed and/or returned to researcher within 10 to 15 working days (for staining with previously validated antibodies)
Consultative services
- Administrative
- Limited annotated data includes age, gender, race/ethnicity, and diagnosis
- Extensive annotated data includes age, gender, race/ethnicity, diagnosis, medication and EMR recorded clinical outcome data (requests for extensive annotated data may require several weeks)
- Paraffin block retrieval
- Pathology consulting