The usefulness of biorepositories in translational research

B12 It is today accepted that tumor biology plays a major role in the tumor progression and explains its aggressiveness, which depends on the equilibrium between activators and inhibitors of several factors involved in the cancer hallmarks, their pathways and interactions. Subsequently, modern analytical tools are being developed to identify biomarkers of clinical usefulness. There are biomarkers, which predict the predisposition of a person to become ill, or the dignity of a sickness, or the risk of recurrence of a disease. Other markers predict the chance of responsiveness to a medication or the incidence of adverse events. All these biomarkers are essential to achieve personalized medicine and shorten the necessary development period. For this purpose good quality specimens including not only formalin fixed paraffin embedded tissues but also fresh frozen tissues and body fluids accompanied by relevant and robust clinical and biological data are prerequisites.
 These aspects promoted us to found in 1995 a non-for-profit Tumorbank organization. We collected data, fresh frozen tissues and sub-fractions of 10’000 breast cancer patients and more recently also from prostate cancer patients. The data include clinical parameters at time of material acquirement and of follow-ups, data produced by the collaborative pathologists at an immuno- and histo-pathological level and the quantitative assessment of several markers at protein and RNA expression levels.
 Using such a repository source, we were able to gain important knowledge. In this context we report, what we consider as the most clinical relevant results achieved. We described the epidemiology of the incidence of ERBB2 overexpression / amplification varying from 40% in very young to 12% in old post-menopausal breast cancer patients independently from the nodal status. Such information correctly integrated in the design of clinical trials could have spared unnecessary costs and speed up the introduction of helpful medications to the sensitive patient cohorts. More recently, we demonstrated that the quantification of the transcription factor E2F1 recapitulates breast tumor proliferation, which is now demonstrated also by several other groups to be the most important prognostic component for risk of recurrence of breast cancer patients. The quantitative detection of E2F1 together with the one of estrogen and progesterone receptors and ERBB2 by QRT-PCR in a core biopsy gives already at preoperative stages relevant clinical information for the treatment of breast cancer patients comparable with the Oncotype Dx recurrence score and the more complex gene signatures obtained from microarray based assays. In our organization unpublished data and a representative number of specimens remain available and upgradeable. Moreover, new acquisitions are still on going and could be performed accordantly to new research needs in collaboration with supportive partners.