NCI Biospecimen Best Practices Forum - Seattle

1. Biospecimen Science
   The purpose of the Biospecimen Research Network Discussion Session is to highlight the impact of preanalytical variables on research and clinical findings. Speakers will present data illustrating how biospecimen preanalytical variables have affected molecular studies and clinical findings. After the presentations, a broader discussion will address the impact of biospecimen preanalytical variables on specific assays and the potential ways that variability can be minimized. At the end of the session, participants will have a better understanding of the significance and scope of preanalytical biospecimen variability, the influence of such variability on molecular and clinical findings, and how that variability can be addressed.
2. Cost Recovery Models and Other Economic Issues
   The purpose of this session is to discuss several economic issues for biospecimen resources in the public and private sectors, including the overall economic value of biospecimen resources in the scientific research enterprise, strategies for maintaining biospecimen resources using cost recovery models, and understanding costs associated with implementing the NCI Best Practices for Biospecimen Resources. This session will feature brief presentations and a dialogue with Dr. Jim Vaught, NCI; Dr. Martin Ferguson, Cofounder of Ardais Corporation; and Ms. Lisa Miranda, Technical Director, Tumor Tissue and Biospecimen Bank, University of Pennsylvania. Audience participation is strongly encouraged to identify additional issues for NCI consideration and to inform the development of case studies that highlight, clarify, and explain key economic issues for biospecimen resources.
3. Demonstration of caBIG™ Biospecimen Resource Management Tools
   In this discussion session, Dr. Ian Fore, Associate Director for Biorepository and Pathology Informatics at the NCI Center for Bioinformatics, will lead a demonstration of cutting-edge, open-source NCI cancer Biomedical Informatics Grid (caBIG™) biospecimen resource management tools. The demonstration will feature caTissue Core 1.2, the second iteration of the caBIG™ tissue bank repository tool for biospecimen inventory, tracking, and basic annotation. Dr. Fore also will provide a brief overview of caTissue Suite, which will be released early in 2008. caTissue Suite integrates caTissue Core functions with the cancer Text Information Extraction System (caTIES) and caTissue Clinical Annotation Engine (CAE). All of these tools are designed to support biospecimen resource managers in implementing the NCI Best Practices for Biospecimen Resources.

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