Biosamples and CC Biobanks …

AMMF liaises with The Cholangiocarcinoma Foundation in the US where and when we can, but it is important to bear in mind that what happens in the US re treatments, research, etc, can at times be very different to the situation in the UK.

For example, after the CCF recently put out a request for individuals to donate samples to the Mayo Clinic’s international biorepository, AMMF was asked to help locate centres where UK patients could have their samples taken. However, because of the UK’s strict rules about the use and sharing of human samples (The Human Tissue Act became even more stringent when the law changed following the Alder Hey scandal), there currently isn’t a way for individual UK patients to participate in this biorepository.

However, there are a growing number of CC biobanks at various centres within the UK, and plans are well underway towards establishing a UK national CC biobank – this is something AMMF has been, and will be, involved in supporting.

There is also already a collaboration in place between the Mayo and Imperial College – set up specifically for the Mayo to recruit bile samples for the bile biomarker work here in the UK, and this has resulted in a good number of samples coming over US to UK. Dr Abi Zabron in particular (a past AMMF Research Fellow) has spent a considerable amount of time at the Mayo training the Mayo team in Imperial’s protocols.

To read Dr Zabron’s Mayo report, click here.

June 2014