Posted on Thursday October 23, 2014
Oshawa - - Lakeridge Health has taken a major leap forward with the opening of Canada’s first certified biobank in a community hospital.
Together with the hospital’s growing research program and top ranked cancer centre, the Lakeridge Health Biobank will store human tissue that can be used to test new drugs and therapies.
“Most healthcare facilities that have comprehensive biobanks are usually teaching hospitals,” says Kevin Empey, President and CEO of Lakeridge Health. “We are the first community hospital in Canada to do this.”
Lakeridge Health has more than 140 active research studies. Many of them require human tissue to test promising new therapies with people in various stages of disease.
Some studies have been so successful they have developed drugs and devices now considered standard of care for serious illness like cancer and heart disease. Lakeridge Health was part of a study that developed the drug Crizotinib. It is now approved by Health Canada after it was found to help treat young never-smokers who developed lung cancer due to a genetic biomarker called ALK.
“These studies have generated a whole new world of hope for some of our cancer patients,” says Empey. “But to be successful, our researchers require a steady supply of tissue samples to test their theories.”
When someone has a procedure that removes tissue, often there is more removed than is needed to make a diagnosis. Now people who have these procedures at Lakeridge Health may be approached by their surgeon or oncologist, who will explain how the biobank works and ask for their consent to donate this extra tissue.
Donated samples will be stored in a secure place called a biobank so that it may be used to develop future treatments to help others. They will be used only after a researcher receives approval to use them from the Lakeridge Health Research Ethics Board.
The Lakeridge Health Biobank is the first in a community hospital in Canada to be certified by the Canadian Tumour Repository Network and is also a member of the Canadian Biobank Resource Centre, a group dedicated to promoting best standards and guidelines for biobanking, and follows national standards for biobanking operations.
