Tissue Bank Inventory System (TBIS)
The TBIS group has developed and implemented a tissue bank inventory system at two of the central sites for the Health Sciences Tissue Bank (HSTB). This tool will allow the HSTB to be able to track what tissues are banked at an institutional level rather than locally at each site. We will be working with the HSTB to install this application at all of their sites and integrating the inventory data with the Organ Specific Databases (OSD) to further annotate the banked tissues.
Web-based tools for tissue banking with multiple institutions:
Two modules related to tissue banking have been enhanced with many tools. One module was for the Cooperative Prostate Cancer Tissue Resource (www.prostatetissues.org) and the other was the Pennsylvania Cancer Alliance Bioinformatics Consortium (www.pcabc.upmc.edu). Web-based query tools were created for both groups at multiple levels.
The Public viewer, which requires no passwords, will be available directly off the web site of the respective project. This viewer is intended for the general public and allows users to query and only see frequencies of some basic key data elements. It will allow interested investigators to see if there are enough cases available in a given project.
The Approved Investigator viewer, which requires a user name and password, is intended for those investigators that have approved protocols with the project. It allows users to refine their case list for their application and also to mine the data set on the cases from which they received tissues. The viewer shows each case and all the data associated with it based on the users selected search criteria, but NOT which tissue bank these specimens came from.
The Data Managers viewer, which requires a user name and password, is intended only for the internal members of the project. It is meant for data managers to address QA regarding the data collected and for organizing tissue distribution.
In additional, the group has developed data entry tools that allow users to enter data directly into the OSD via a web-based data entry tool or to send their data in batch form using a pre-defined format, which is loaded in a semi-automated fashion.
We have also developed and manage a public web site for the PCABC. The site allows us to manage all activities for the group, including sharing documents and posting upcoming events. It also provides links to the various data sets available through the OSD.
Cancer Registry tools:
Because the Cancer Registry is able to provide valuable longitudinal follow up data for researchers, focus has been placed on pulling relevant data directly out of its existing system, IMPAC. The group has created a web-based query tool that will allow the registrar to see data collected at each of their facilities and are able to create one comprehensive collective view of the patient that can then be linked to the OSD.
In the coming year, the group will continue to focus on bringing useful data from existing clinical systems and integrating it with the OSD. We hope that doing so will not only help the research community at large, but also make many of these existing systems to become more efficient. This group will continue to work not only with the HSTB, Cancer Registry, and the Department of Pathology, but also other research groups within and outside of our institution.