Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center
The Children's Oncology Group laboratory is located at Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center in Lubbock, TX and is under the direction of C Patrick Reynolds, MD PhD. The Childhood Cancer Repository is generously supported by Alex's Lemonade Stand Foundation. Support for the animal facilities used by the repository is provided by the Cancer Prevention & Research Institute of Texas. Support for genomic and biological characterization of cell lines and PDXs in the repository comes from the National Cancer Institute and the Department of Defense.
With the exception of legacy cell lines established many years ago, all cell lines and PDXs banked in cccells.org are obtained via clinical protocols (mostly COG) with informed consent/assent. Patient confidentiality is a prime concern and cell lines and PDXs receive designators that enables linkage to key data but not directly to any patient. The one exception to this are those cell lines and PDXs established from patients at post-mortem, which (if requested by the parents) are provided a unique name of the parents' choosing.
The goal of the repository is to provide validated cell lines and PDXs from childhood cancers to all investigators seeking to carry out biological and pre-clinical therapeutic studies of childhood cancer. Every cell line or PDX provided by the repository is validated as to patient of origin by short tandem repeat (STR) assay, and to be free of mycoplasma and EBV. PDXs are validated to be free of a panel of viral pathogens as required by most animal use committees. Cell lines and PDXs are validated to be able to grow continuously and be sub-passable for additional studies. The repository maintains a searchable STR database to facilitate validation of cell line and PDX molecular identity by any investigator. Thus, the repository enables all investigators studying childhood cancer to share the same validated models so that data obtained are robust and can be compared between laboratories. Read more The Childhood Cancer Repository