Tissue and Serum Repository

Tissue Request Form (PDF)

TSR Brochure (PDF)

Mission/Purpose

The KMCRI Tissue and Serum Repository (TSR) is a core facility for the procurement of human tissue and corresponding serum samples for research.  It is available to all clinical and basic science research faculty at KUMC, as well as, outside investigators. With its systematic collection of normal and malignant tissues, it serves an increasingly important function to promote translational research activities involving clinical and basic scientists.  Priority is given to investigators involved in cancer-related studies.

Services Provided

1. Procurement of human tissue and serum samples for research purposes.

2. Tissue preservation customized to individual research protocols including, fresh state, snap-frozen (liquid nitrogen), frozen section (OCT-embedded) and tissues prepared in a fixative.

3.Specimen data that includes patient age, gender, and race. Investigators will receive a copy of the pathology report, without patient identifiers. Upon request, additional information may be obtained from the patient medical record, such as, health history and demographical data, expression of hormone receptors and other biomarkers.

Procurement Charges

To cover the cost of collection, coding, and preparation of the samples provided, there is a processing fee assessed for each tissue or serum sample.  

Investigators	Charge/Sample
KMCRI Member	$20.00
Non-KMCRI Member	$30.00
Outside Investigator	$50.00

Benefits to the KMCRI Members.

The TSR provides easy access to a central facility for the procurement of high quality human specimens for research, in a timely and cost effective manner.  In addition, it offers expertise to support the procurement of normal and malignant human tissues to study the underlying biochemical, cellular/molecular mechanisms responsible for breast and prostate cancer.  By tracing the health background of patients from whom the preserved materials were collected, it provides the opportunity to conduct epidemiological analyses.

Personnel Associated with the TSR Core

Director:  Ossama Tawfik, M.D. Ph.D.
Dr. Tawfik is a Professor in the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, member of KMCRI, Director of Surgical Pathology Division, and the Medical Director of the Immunohistochemistry and Image Analysis Laboratories.  He provides his expertise in the histopathological analysis, and the interpretation of the immunocytochemical analysis of all the tissue samples. 

Associate Director: Sara Antonia Li, Ph.D. 
Dr. Li is a member of the KMCRI and Research Associate Professor at the Department of Pharmacology, Toxicology, and Experimental Therapeutics.  She is responsible for the day-to-day operation of the TSR that includes supervising the research associate, ensuring quality control, and submitting progress reports to the Advisory Committee and KMCRI.

Research Associate: Ms. Jodi Ballenger. 

Ms. Ballenger devotes full-time and effort to perform all TSR services. Her responsibilities include obtaining the daily surgery schedules and patient consents to donate resected surgical tissues; collecting tissue specimens, processing, coding, and storing or dispensing them immediately. In addition to collecting tissues at KUMC, she is the coordinator for a prostate tissue collection protocol at the Kansas City VA hospital. She maintains the TSR database, which includes storage information and various pathological data, and does the chart review of patient medical records, when needed. She takes inventory of laboratory supplies, ordering supplies, invoicing users, equipment maintenance, and quality control assays and procedures.  She maintains patient confidentiality, reports annually to the Human Subject's Committee, and complies with all current regulations.  She gathers all necessary information for reports regarding the TSR.

Program Data Base Leader: Mr. John Gray
Mr. Gray has extensive experience in database development and in applications and systems programming. He has established databases of all specimen and patient-specific data using Microsoft Access software.  These databases reside in the KMCRI file server.

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