Paraffin Tissue Bank
The University Of Nebraska Medical Center Paraffin Tissue Bank (PTB) was established to support clinical and translational research through easy access to formalin fixed, paraffin embedded human tissue.
The PTB is under the leadership of the Department of Pathology & Microbiology at UNMC and housed in the Tissue Science Facility (TSF) in partnership with the Tissue Procurement Shared Resource (TPSR).
Watch the UNMC Paraffin Tissue Bank video tutorial to learn how to navigate in the NECARES site and request tissue from the PTB.
Paraffin Embedded Tissue Request Form
Services
The PTB is made up of paraffin-embedded human tissue from a variety of neoplastic and nonneoplastic diseases and paired normal samples. This excess formalin fixed material was not necessary for diagnosis and obtained from patients who have consented for scientists to use this extra material for research purposes. It is procured, processed, and embedded within 4 weeks of the completion of pathologic analysis after surgery. The bank currently contains over 2,000 blocks from a variety of organs and disease processes with new specimens being accrued every week.
Central to the PTB’s operation is the novel management system, NECARES. This online database offers UNMC researchers the means to search the bank’s inventory in a de-identified fashion, making it more efficient to find and acquire tissue for research projects. In the future, NECARES will give researchers the ability to perform searches on a large number of variables typically recorded in the pathology report, as well as PTB staff will be able to link to patient information with proper IRB approval and consent.
Requires an intro statement.
- Approved IRB protocol of study or exemption documentation.
- Complete and submit form.
- Contact PTB Tissue Services Technologist
Prioritization
Requests for material are reviewed by PTB staff. When significant volume of a tissue is requested by several investigators and supply is limited, the following algorithm is followed for assigning priority:
- Investigator-initiated, NCI-funded, peer-reviewed research
- Investigator-initiated, externally-funded, peer-reviewed research by funding source: State of Nebraska, etc.
- Investigator-initiated, funded and peer-reviewed research within UNMC
- Investigator-initiated, non-funded research
- Other
Distribution
For large orders or those that include instances in which a block may be exhausted by the request, review by the Tissue Utilization Committee will occur. When the Tissue Utilization Committee has approved the request, PTB personnel will inform investigators and arrange transportation.
Pricing
| Service | Price | Quantity |
| De-identified tissue from PTB | ||
| Tissue procurement - Unstained slides | $5.50 | per slide |
| Tissue procurement during non-business hours | $30.00 | per sample |
| Core Tissue, sub-block, 1, 2, or 3mm punch | $20.00 | per punch |
| Paraffin Curls | $3.50 | per block |
| Review of slides by pathologist | $45.00 | 15 minutes |
| Slide Box | $6.50 | 100 Slide Capacity |
| Fresh procurement/special processing | $22.00 | Per sample |
| Note: Tissue microarray (TMAs) with designated construction by the UNMC Paraffin Bank, Coming Soon. | ||
| Material from clinical archives (Nebraska Medicine Anatomic Pathology archives) |
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| Slide requests for research purposes to the Nebraska Medicine Slide Room (2009-present) |
$2.00 | per case, slide or block |
| Request to pull and return blocks for research purposes by the PTB Staff | $2.00 | per block |
| Slides/Blocks (prior to 2009) | $70.00 | per case, slide or block |
Note: All PTB fees are issued separately from those charged by the Tissue Science Facility for staining and image analysis. Please see the TSF website for more information.
Additional fees may be applied for special distribution, shipping or handling (if applicable).
Request Tissue and Form
The Nebraska Cancer Analytic Research System (NECARES) database was created to catalog tissue in the PTB via the Cancer Synoptic Worksheets and utilizing SNOMED encoding. These standardized reports generated by pathologists as a part of standard patient care allow for easy searching of a number of prognostic and descriptive variables of tumors from more than 84 organ systems. The goal of NECARES is to represent the data in a way that is useful to researchers.
NECARES was developed by the team of Dr. Scott Scott Campbell, Dr. James Campbell, Phil Colbert and Jay Pedersen. Learn about the team’s other projects..
Requisition for Specimens
If the specimens requested are available in the PTB, investigators will submit a completed request form to the PTB personnel.
