The Southern Division of the Cooperative Human Tissue Network, an integral part of the National Cancer Institute, has established a partnership with Atlantic Health Biobank to facilitate the exchange of samples.
The state-of-the-art Atlantic Health BioBank has formed a new partnership with the National Cancer Institute’s (NCI) Cooperative Human Tissue Network (CHTN) – Southern Division, allowing Atlantic Health System to share the initial samples of human tissue.
The CHTN, which is supported by the NCI, serves as a valuable resource facilitating the broader availability of human tissue for scientific research purposes. Established in 1987, the CHTN has supplied over 1 million samples to over 3,400 researchers globally. With its divisions situated at renowned universities and hospital institutions throughout the nation, the CHTN collaborates directly with investigators to offer customized deidentified biospecimens and tissue processing services tailored to their individual requirements. Throughout its existence, the CHTN has exclusively included eight institutions within its network.
The BioRepository and Precision Pathology Center at Duke University School of Medicine currently heads the Southern Division of the CHTN (Collaborative Human Tissue Network). Within this division, the Atlantic Health BioBank serves as the initial subsite. The Southern Division is one among six divisions operating throughout the country.
Each day, various medical and surgical procedures produce surplus biological substances nationwide. These materials hold significant value for scientists in their quest to discover groundbreaking methods for combatting diseases like cancer. The partnership between Atlantic Health System and NCI aims to furnish clinical researchers with the necessary resources for pushing forward the boundaries of medical science.
The Atlantic Health BioBank serves as a centralized facility that securely gathers biological substances devoid of personal identification, which would otherwise be discarded as medical refuse. These substances include tissues, blood and its components, as well as genetic material. The BioBank team diligently stores and conserves the collected samples, ensuring the removal of any patient identifiers. Ultimately, these resources are made available to research collaborators such as academic institutions, pharmaceutical and biotech companies, and the Atlantic Center for Research within the Atlantic Health System.
The Atlantic Health BioBank presently houses a vast collection of deidentified specimens gathered over numerous years. This extensive repository possesses the ability to store and supply valuable research material across diverse domains such as cardiovascular and gastrointestinal diseases, as well as oncology. Some of the earliest samples made available for study were collected several decades ago.
“Atlantic Health’s mission is to design and deliver high quality, innovative and personalized health care to build healthier communities and improve lives for patients, their loved ones and caregivers. This exciting partnership presents an opportunity for us to help support the next generation of medical breakthroughs,” said Suja Mathew, MD, Executive Vice President, Chief Clinical Officer, Atlantic Health System. “By partnering with the Cooperative Human Tissue Network’s Southern Division we are opening our doors to cancer researchers from across the globe so that we can drive the innovations that protect more people from disease for years to come.”
“The CHTN was created by the National Cancer Institute decades ago ‘to stimulate, for the good of the public, cooperative efforts to collect and distribute human tumor tissues for cancer research,” said Shannon McCall, MD, Principal Investigator for CHTN at Duke University and Director of the Duke Biorepository & Precision Pathology Center. “As the Southern Division of the CHTN, we are excited to expand the pool of human tissue specimens available to support biomedical research through our new partnership with Atlantic Health Biobank.”