Program Leadership

Shannon J. McCall, MD
Director

Melissa Flowers
Senior Laboratory Administrator

The BioRepository & Precision Pathology Center (BRPC) was created to provide Duke with a shared resource for coordinated tissue processing and biorepository services in a CAP/CLIA accredited environment. The BRPC provides services that include patient identification and informed consent, specimen collection, processing and banking and annotation of banked specimens and specimen distribution. The consolidation of biobanking into a single infrastructure represents an opportunity to ensure:
The BRPC is based in the Department of Pathology, has dedicated staff, and is under the direction of Shannon McCall, PhD. Primary customers of the BRPC are the Disease-Specific Working Groups of the Duke Cancer Institute (DCI), who govern collection priorities and distributions for their groups. With the BRPC, all DCI members have access to robust, gold-standard biobanking and protocol development services and, with the approval by the relevant disease-site group, to use of human biospecimens relevant to a wide range of cancers.
The BRPC functions under a single IRB protocol focused on banking "excess" and limited "additional" specimens for research. “Excess tissue” can be immediately obtained in conjunction with surgical resections through our close association with the Department of Pathology. "Additional tissue" may also be safely obtained during biopsy procedures in which the patient has consented for an additional biopsy to be taken for research. Concordance between research and diagnostic biopsy samples is ensured by our pathology staff. Patients will also consent to have their medical record accessed by BRPC staff for limited sample annotation.
Our group provides biospecimen inventory management of frozen samples, paraffin-embedded samples, fractionated blood components, daughter specimens, and derived specimens including DNA and RNA. As part of our CAP-accreditation and association with the Department of Pathology, every solid tissue specimen we bank is histologically verified with annotation of tumor content and digital photographic documentation.
BRPC Request For Protocol Support
To request continuous BRPC services for a protocol, please complete the form and email to melissa.flowers@duke.edu. Download Form
BRPC Request For Samples or Data
To request existing BRPC samples or associated data, please complete this form and email to BRPC@duke.edu. Download Form
Clinical Trial Pathology Materials
To request individual pathology materials (e.g. slides, etc.) for Clinical Trial Enrollment/ Eligibility, please complete the form and email to path-clintrials@duke.edu. Please note there is a fee associated with these requests. Download Form
DCI Disease-specific Working Groups Are the Customers of the BRPC
The BRPC is helping the DCI disease-specific working group develop their own individual tissue repositories using a centralized and common infrastructure. These repositories are "owned" and governed by these working groups and banking priorities and specimen release is regulated under their governance, by a governance body. Each governance body should include representative of all areas of practice (surgeons, oncologists, pathologists, and basic scientists). Requests for tissue banking or tissue release should be submitted through your DCI working group; more specifically through your group's governance body. Governance bodies receive, evaluate, and approve requests from members of their working group before submitting requests to the BRPC for processing. If your discipline's working group has not established a governance body, please take this opportunity to discuss this banking project with your working group leader. A list of disease-specific working group leaders is provided below.
Banking Requests
Once tissue banking priorities have been established through your group's governance body, your group should identify patients to meet your banking needs. These may be patients who are being seen in your clinics or by your group's surgeons, oncologists, or radiologists. The BRPC can only consent patients and bank their tissue if the patient has an upcoming scheduled diagnostic procedure or surgery where tissue will be also be obtained for clinical purposes. Some groups have added nurses or clinical research staff to the BRPC protocol to aid in the consenting process (described below). Notification to the BRPC of a request for banking can be made using our banking request form. A banking request form is available with instructions. To have the BRPC successfully bank tissue the BRPC requires:
Consenting Mechanisms
Consent for tissue collection can occur in two ways.
Contact the BRPC Staff or at 919.684.6928 for more information about option 2, or to request a training session for consenting on the BRPC protocol.
Two Different Consent Forms
Consent for the BRPC protocol can be obtained using two different consent forms.
Both of the above consent forms:
It is important to note that every "additional" tissue collection from the patient solely for banking requires a new consent event.
Services Rendered and Tissue Release
In addition to banking tissue, BRPC staff will also provide the following services:
For Additional Information
The BRPC would be happy to provide additional information. If you would like a complete copy of our research protocol, to see if it would meet your needs, please contact the BRPC Staff or at 919.684.6928.
A list of the DCI disease-specific Working Group Directors is provided for reference below:
Disease/Program |
Director |
Assoc. Director for Clinical Research |
Brain |
Allan Friedman |
Henry Friedman |
Breast |
Kelly Marcom |
TBD |
Gyn Onc |
Andy Berchuck |
Angeles Secord |
Thoracic |
Tommy D’Amico |
Jeff Crawford |
GI |
Jim Abbruzzese |
Herb Hurwitz |
Heme |
Nelson Chao |
David Rizzieri |
Prostate/GU |
Dan George |
Andy Armstrong |
Endocrine Neoplasia |
Julie Sosa |
|
Melanoma |
TBD |
April Salama |
Sarcoma |
Brian Brigman |
Rich Riedel |
Head & Neck |
David Brizel |
Walter Lee |
Shared Resource: BioRepository & Precision Pathology Center
Around the world, volunteers save thousands of lives by donating everything from organs, blood, platelets, and even bone marrow to patients in need. Patients at the Duke Cancer Institute are making their own life-saving impact by making a more unusual donation–cancerous tissue removed during surgical treatment and biopsies. More
Duke Cancer Institute constellates the world-class resources of Duke University, Duke Health and the Duke Comprehensive Cancer Center into a collaborative powerhouse. We are poised to drive a paradigm shift in the way long-established cancer centers and institutes have been waging this war.
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