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• Biospecimen Repository and Processing Lab

Biospecimen Repository and Processing Lab, Canada

Objective: The Ontario Familial Breast Cancer Registry, Ontario Cancer Genetic Network, Sarcoma Tissue Bank, Ontario Familial Colon Cancer Registry, Familial Gastrointestinal Registry, the Ontario Pancreas Cancer Study, the Ontario Health Study and the Ontario Birth Study are the major studies for which biospecimens are processed and stored. The Biospecimen Repository and Processing Lab provides services to process biospecimens such as blood, saliva, urine, tumour tissue (fresh frozen or paraffin embedded tissue) as well as isolate DNA or RNA from these source samples. The fully automated robotic aliquoting system (Tecan freedom evo) is used for aliquoting biospecimens for large scale studies. Manual aliquoting and processing systems are used for smaller studies which allows for customization. The robotic DNA extraction system (Tecan freedom evo) utilizes Promega’s Reliaprep chemistry to extract DNA from 3 to 10 milliliters of blood or 5 milliliters of saliva samples. This automated system incorporates DNA quantiation by both spectrophotometry and fluorometry. Manual extraction protocols are available when smaller DNA yields, such as paraffin embedded tissue, is expected. Upon request, biospecimens are assembled and provided to researchers with proper approvals.