Brent Harris
Georgetown University, DC·Medicine & Clinical Research
Translational cancer research depends on access to real human tissue: tumor samples that are properly preserved, carefully linked to clinical information about the patient, and examined by a pathologist who can say what the tissue actually shows. The Histopathology & Tissue Shared Resource is the shared facility that supplies this at the Georgetown Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center, collecting and distributing fresh, frozen, and formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded tissue plus selected body fluids from a bank drawn from 15,440 patients, and providing interpretive pathology alongside the specimens.
- Fields
Medicine & Clinical Research
Biology
Genetics
- Topics
histopathology
biorepository
biospecimen banking
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Apr 2029
What they work on
- Collect and distribute clinically annotated human biospecimens, including fresh, frozen, and formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded tissue and selected biofluids from a bank spanning 15,440 patients, for translational cancer research across the consortium.
- Provide comprehensive histology and interpretive pathology services, including microtomy, staining, quantitative multiplex immunohistochemistry, immunofluorescence, and tissue microarray construction and analysis.
- Deliver spatial biology capability on newly acquired platforms, RNAscope, NanoString GeoMx, Akoya PhenoCycler, and Standard BioTools imaging mass cytometry, to map gene and protein activity within intact tumor tissue.
- Expand quantitative automated brightfield and immunofluorescence image analysis, immunophenotyping, and microRNA in situ staining in response to investigator feedback and advisory committee recommendations.
- Support investigator-driven collection protocols with technical and pathology expertise, clinical and pathology database searching, consultation, and user training, coordinating with genomics, biobanking, and mass spectrometry shared resources.
More about the research
The resource is co-directed by a pathologist who oversees services and provides comprehensive pathology support at the Washington, DC site, with a counterpart directing the biorepository and pathology services at Hackensack Meridian Health in New Jersey; consenting and specimen collection processes were rebuilt in New Jersey, which expanded and diversified the specimens available to cancer center members. Beyond banking, the DC facility performs the laboratory work that turns tissue into data: tissue processing, paraffin and frozen section microtomy (cutting thin slices for microscopy), staining, immunohistochemistry including quantitative multiplex versions that label several proteins at once, immunofluorescence, and construction, staining, and interpretation of tissue microarrays, which place many small tissue cores on a single slide so dozens of cases can be stained together. Technical and pathology support is also provided for investigator-designed collection protocols.
Why it matters
Cancer research that aims to change patient care needs human tumor tissue that is well preserved, clinically annotated, and expertly interpreted. By banking specimens from thousands of patients across two sites and providing histology, multiplex protein staining, and spatial biology platforms, this resource lets investigators test hypotheses in actual patient material rather than only in cell lines, work that has supported dozens of funded projects, publications, and clinical trials. Rebuilt consenting in New Jersey has also broadened and diversified the patient populations represented.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Muralidharan Jayaraman
University of Oklahoma-Health Sciences Center, OK·Medicine & Clinical Research
Provide tissue microarray construction, histochemical staining and immunohistochemistry on paraffin-embedded and frozen tissues to support cancer biology and diagnostics research.
Jian Ouyang
Medical University of South Carolina, SC·Genetics
Provide reliable, cost-effective next-generation sequencing library preparation, including bulk RNA-seq, ChIP-seq, ATAC-seq and methylation sequencing, for cancer center investigators.
Karen Creswell
Georgetown University, DC·Microbiology & Immunology
Provide flow cytometry analysis and cell sorting to cancer center members at two sites, sorting cells by transfection markers, stem cell panels and surface or internal markers for functional and molecular follow-up studies.
The school
Georgetown University: 14 labs on PI Pages, $377M a year on research, 206 research doctorates a year.
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