Purpose and Overview

PURPOSE

The Cooperative Human Tissue Network (CHTN) is supported by the National Cancer Institute to provide biomedical researchers with access to human tissues. Six member institutions coordinate the collection and distribution of tissues across the US and Canada in six regional divisions. The CHTN specializes in the prospective procurement, preservation and distribution of human tissues for research. In addition to normal, benign and malignant tissues, tissues from patients with specific diseases such as ulcerative colitis, a premalignant state, are provided. Trained personnel coordinate the retrieval, preservation and delivery of specimens obtained from surgical resections and from autopsies.

RESEARCH USING CHTN TISSUE

Since its establishment in 1987, the CHTN has provided more than 500,000 high quality specimens from a wide variety of organ sites to over a thousand investigators. Human tissues provided to investigators by the institutions involved in the CHTN have been utilized in a wide variety of research projects. Publications have ranged from reporting mutations of protooncogenes in human tumors using mRNA to a wide range of other studies in the following areas: growth factors, isoenzymes, development of monoclonal antibodies and cell lines, studies of subcellular organelles, gene isolation/gene deletion, flow cytometry, and DNA hybridization.

Requirements for collection, storage and distribution vary depending on the type of research and type of tissue. Some studies of mRNA and labile proteins should be conducted on tissues from surgical resection which are fresh or are snap-frozen and stored at ultra-low temperatures. Other studies of more stable biological molecules can easily be investigated using tissues obtained from autopsy; these tissues can also be used in a wide range of studies including the establishment of viable tissue cultures and cell lines. The CHTN encourages all investigators to consider the necessary tissue requirements for their individual research projects. Such information provides investigators with the broadest possible number and range of research specimens.

Last updated: 09/02/03.

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