The Alliance NCTN Biorepository and Biospecimen Resource

PROJECT SUMMARY/ABSTRACT The NCTN's Alliance for Clinical Trials in Oncology (Alliance) and its associated biorepositories represent an unequaled resource of expertise, institutional infrastructure, and high quality, densely annotated patient biospecimens collected from several decades of cancer therapeutic trials. The scientific mission of the Alliance Biorepository and Biospecimen Resource (ABBR) is to support the activities of the Alliance, the NCTN, and the broader cancer research community through four specific aims, which are: 1) To prospectively support Alliance and NCTN-wide clinical cancer trials with respect to biospecimen procurement, tracking, processing, quality assurance, storage, and distribution. The ABBR implements a number of innovative approaches to streamline biospecimen collection and support the collection of novel biospecimen types for genomic, proteomic, immunoncology, and `liquid biopsy' biomarker studies in the context of therapeutic trials; 2) To provide a resource of high quality, densely annotated biospecimens for secondary correlative science studies directed toward biomarker validation with high clinical impact. The ABBR cooperates with other NCTN biorepositories, the NCTN Biospecimen `Front Door Service', and the NCTN Navigator tool to provide inventories of biospecimens that may be suitable for secondary correlative science studies proposed both within the NCTN groups as well as the broader cancer research community. It also works with other NCTN members and NCI to create an efficient and transparent process for reviewing, approving, and executing such requests so as to speed the translation of candidate biomarkers to cancer diagnostics with clinical utility; 3) To provide scientific leadership to the NCTN biobanking enterprise, by active participation in the NCTN Group Banking Committee (GBC). The ABBR will continue its outstanding commitment to harmonizing and improving biobanking Best Practices by active participation in GBC meetings, subcommittees activities, and work products, and; 4) To provide expertise and infrastructure support for biobanking efforts aligned with and beyond the NCTN, including the Cancer and Immune Monitoring Analysis Centers (CIMACs) and the Community Oncology Research Program (NCORP). Having created a federated infrastructure of biorepository sites and a unifying informatics platform for tracking biospecimens across them, the ABBR continues to be uniquely poised to collaborate with other NCI programs, whenever biorepository or biospecimen resources are required for specific translational cancer research efforts.