About the tissue bank
The Pancreatic Cancer Research Fund Tissue Bank (PCRFTB) has now opened its stores to researchers to access extensively clinically annotated tissues and cell banks (cancer organoids and cancer associated fibroblasts).
PCRFTB has been prospectively collecting samples since 2015 across the nation. Whilst blood and urine as well as data has been available for research, we are now extending access to extremely precious pancreas samples. These have been clinically and histologically verified, making it the Bank one of the most significant prospective sample collections in the world. You have access to curated genomic and transcriptomic data. Donors have provided extensive clinical data (median 300 data points per visit, multiple visits per donor), making it ideal for pertinent clinical correlates for research findings.
Please see Information for Researchers page to understand how to apply for data and/or samples.
The Pancreatic Cancer Research Fund Tissue Bank (PCRFTB) is the world's first national pancreas tissue bank and will accelerate research into pancreatic cancer.
The Tissue Bank is a unique collaboration between the charity, Barts Cancer Institute, Queen Mary University of London and nine key NHS partners throughout the UK, each renowned for its expertise in treating pancreatic cancer:
- Barts Health NHS Trust (London)
- The Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust
- University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust
- Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust
- University Hospital Southampton NHS Foundation Trust
- ABM University Health Board, Swansea
- The London Clinic
- Newcastle upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust
- University College Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust
We hope that more hospitals will join the collaboration.
The Tissue Bank collects and stores tissue, blood, saliva and urine from people with pancreatic cancer and other diseases of the pancreas, alongside samples of blood, urine and saliva from first degree relatives of patient donors and other healthy volunteers.
While reserves are being built up, applications for samples will be invited from researchers at all the collaborating centres and those engaged in current and completed projects funded by Pancreatic Cancer Research Fund. The Tissue Bank will be open to applications from any researcher in the UK from year 3, and as stocks become sufficiently available, to international researchers.
Researchers will be able to apply to access tissues alongside detailed information about the tumour type, grade and the anonymous donor's clinical history. We anticipate that around 1,000 new patients will donate their tumour tissue to the Tissue Bank each year.
The Tissue Bank incorporates a Research & Development arm, which will ensure that it remains at the forefront of research techniques to yield as much information from tissue samples as possible.
All research data generated from the Tissue Bank samples will be fed back into a bespoke bioinformatics database and made freely available to the global research community.
If you are a patient and want to find out more about donating to the Tissue Bank, please visit our main website.
Your rights to access change or move your information are limited, as we need to manage your information in specific ways in order for the research to be reliable and accurate. If you withdraw from the study, we will keep the information about you that we have already obtained. To safeguard your rights, we will use the minimum personally-identifiable information possible.
You can find out more about how we use your information at http://www.jrmo.org.uk.
Copyright and Database right for the database created for Pancreatic Cancer Research Fund Tissue Bank is held by Queen Mary University of London and its employees Hemant Kocher, Claude Chelala and Dayem Ullah, and the Pancreatic Cancer Research Fund (PCRF). All rights reserved. Access to the information held in the Pancreatic Cancer Research Fund Tissue Bank is provided for non-commercial research purposes only. No part of the database or any derivative information generated therefrom may be reproduced in any form without the authors’ express permission.