To establish a multidisciplinary research structure that facilitates projects that bridge specialties that normally may or may not interact. The tissue bank will build the platform for a novel application of translational research that links cutting edge molecular laboratory techniques to clinical outcome studies in a fast and direct manner. Tissue banks can be used for numerous discovery applications such as the identification and structural characterization of human genes, expression analysis, or discovery proteomics. Biological specimens, when coupled with standardized treatment and outcome data, will be essential resources for the identification, characterization, and validation of biomarkers that are predictive of disease and treatment.
