Washington

A survey to be published next week will show the whereabouts of more than 300 million human tissue samples archived in the United States. The survey's authors hope it will form the basis for a comprehensive database of samples and increase their availability to the growing army of researchers who need them.

The Handbook of Human Tissue Resources, to be published by the Science and Technology Policy Institute at the Rand Corporation, attempts to provide comprehensive information on the hundreds of human tissue archives. These range from tens of millions of samples held by the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology to scattered collections in university departments across the United States.

“It is difficult for researchers to know what samples are out there, and what they need,” explains Roger Aamodt, chief of the resources development branch at the National Cancer Institute (NCI). Aamodt's work compiling data on tissue samples from cancer patients helped form the basis for the broader Rand survey. “For the first time, the handbook puts this information in one public document.”

Aamodt says there is “an incredible growth curve” in demand from researchers for human tissue samples, most of which were collected by pathologists without any intention that they would be used for research. But progress in genetics is turning these collections into powerful research tools. The Cooperative Human Tissue Network, which was established by the NCI in 1987 to obtain tissue samples for cancer researchers, distributed 50,000 samples last year to more than 500 investigators.

Aamodt suggests that the guide will be particularly useful for researchers at smaller institutions lacking specialist facilities to help their scientists find samples.

Rand started gathering information on US tissue sample archives for the National Bioethics Advisory Commission when it was preparing guidelines governing the circumstances in which the samples could be used in research. Many patients had not given informed consent to their samples being used in research, and there are concerns about the privacy of the genetic information they contain. The commission published its guidelines last year, and Rand has decided to publish the survey's results as a research tool.

Elisa Eiseman, the survey's chief author, says it should serve as a resource for basic and clinical research into many diseases. She adds that Rand is talking to the NCI and the International Society of Biological and Environmental Repositories about putting the survey's contents on the Internet.