Services

Research Requests

Consultation and interpretive services are available: trained pathologists can provide assistance in staining, interpretation, scoring, and basic statistical analysis. In addition, consultation and planning for large-scale studies are available. Please e-mail us if you have any questions about our repository of paraffin-embedded tissue blocks, tissue microarrays, fresh frozen tissue, OCT embedded frozen tissue, blood, serum, plasma, buffy coat, whole slide images, genomic data (both RNA and DNA based data) and clinical outcomes/asbestos exposure data.

Biospecimens

Search the online NMVB database to identify specimens appropriate for your research.
Submit a Letter of Intent (LOI) that briefly describes your research plan. The NMVB Research Evaluation Panel will review your LOI to assess the scientific merit and feasibility of the proposed project and will respond to your LOI within two weeks of your request. If your LOI is accepted, an NMVB coordinating site team member will be assigned to guide you through the application process.
Submit a full application for specimens using the NMVB application form. Upon completion of your application, the NMVB Research Evaluation Panel will make recommendations to the PI’s, who must approve the distribution of all NMVB specimens.
Upon approval of your LOI, send a Letter of Agreement and sign a Material Transfer Agreement and Intellectual Property Agreement, all of which are required before specimens can be shipped.

How to Get Biospecimen and Data with a Letter of Intent

To receive tissue from the National Mesothelioma Virtual Bank, you must first send a Letter of Intent (LOI) that contains:

Primary investigator, position/title (must be at or above assistant professor or equivalent), institution, address including email, telephone number, and co-investigators.
Title of study.
A statement of the specific aim(s) of the proposed research .
A statement of the background and hypothesis of the proposed research.
A description of the technical approach and methods.
Approximate number and types of cases required.
Justification for samples size and proposed statistical analysis.
Assurance that the technique(s) can be applied to paraffin-embedded, DNA, or blood samples.
Clinical (demographic and epidemiologic) and/or outcome and follow-up data required.

You can submit your Letter of Intent electronically, or download, fill in and mail the Letter of Intent to: Chris Garner at cgarner@pitt.edu