Survey and Biospecimen Shared Resource

CORE 011 – SURVEY AND BIOSPECIMEN SHARED RESOUCE
PROJECT SUMMARY/ABSTRACT
The mission of the Survey and Biospecimen Shared Resource (SBSR) is to provide high-quality survey and
laboratory services to support the Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center (VICC) research community, inclusive of our
VICC members and partners at Meharry Medical College, Tennessee State University, and other NCI Cancer
Centers. This mission is fulfilled through two distinct but complementary functions: survey research services and
laboratory services. The survey services include consultation for study design or implementation, survey
programming, participant enrollment, computer-assisted telephone interviewing, medical record review and
study mailings. The laboratory services include consultation for study design, biospecimen collection,
processing, storage and retrieval, DNA/RNA extraction, genotyping, and biomarker assays. The SBSR also
manages biorepositories for multiple studies including from three large prospective cohort studies and several
large case-control studies. The scientific co-Directors of the SBSR have directed studies involving data and
biologic sample collection from more than 200,000 study participants in the United States and abroad. Thus, the
SBSR provides VICC members with access to significant expertise and capabilities in large-scale population-
based research; avoids the start-up costs associated with hiring and training staff for data collection and sample
processing; shares experienced research staff to reduce study costs; implements rigorous quality control
protocols; and enables high quality specimen and data collection and processing. The major scientific
achievement of the SBSR is reflected in the service utilization and publications. The SBSR supports multiple
studies that are recruiting participants, collecting survey data and/or biospecimens, or performing biological
assays on collected samples. Twenty-six VICC members have benefited from the services of the resource to
improve study design and research quality. VICC members with peer-reviewed support account for 91% and
98% of total service usage for the laboratory services and survey services, respectively. This shared resource
has supported the publication of over 200 cancer-related manuscripts published since 2015 including in journals
such as JAMA, Nature, Nature Genetics, JNCI and Cancer Research. Through the implementation and sharing
of best practices, the SBSR staff demonstrates to users the effectiveness of a rigorous approach to the conduct
of population-based research, which enables individual investigators, students, fellows and staff to better
incorporate these practices into their research programs. Thus, the SBSR services are critical for the research
conducted by VICC members across multiple VICC research programs.

Grant Number: 4P30CA068485-30
NIH Institute/Center: NIH
Principal Investigator: QIUYIN CAI