Garvan Institute of Medical Research

Project Summary

The APGI's ongoing mission is to further develop the existing world-class resource comprising biological samples and comprehensive information on pancreatic cancer patients from diagnosis onwards, including clinical, genomic and outcome data and to use this resource to improve pancreatic cancer care in the era of personalised medicine. Biospecimens are materials taken from the human body, such as tissue or blood, that can be used for cancer diagnosis and analysis. When patients have a biopsy or surgery often a small amount of the specimen removed can be stored and used for research. Biospecimens contain an extraordinary amount of biological information, written in the language of cells, genes and proteins. Researchers can then frame questions that will be answered by looking at these biospecimens, for example, they often use the biospecimen to identify the biological characteristics of cancer cells over time, and then correlate those patterns with the clinical picture ­ - and investigate how different patients experience progression of the disease.