US pathology centre units will live on

Abstract

US pathology centre units will live on We wish to point out that several elements of the US Armed Forces Institute of Pathology (AFIP) have survived its closure and have been relocated within the Department of Defense (Nature 476, 270-272; 2011). These units include the Depleted Uranium and Imbedded Fragment Laboratory, the Molecular Laboratory, Telepathology, the Automated Central Tumor Registry, the Veterinary Pathology Program (including residency training), the Armed Forces Medical Examiner function, the Histotechnology Training Program, and the congressionally funded Combat Wound Initiative. The Department of Veterans' Affairs has assumed responsibility for the capabilities of the Biophysical Research Laboratory. The Department of Defense is working to make the vast collection of the former AFIP Tissue Repository (now part of the Joint Pathology Center) broadly available for research. At our request, the Institute of Medicine has convened a panel of national experts in biorepository management, medical informatics, medical ethics and pathology. The panel's task is to recommend the optimal and sustainable use of repository material; who should have access to it; technologies needed to utilize the repository; and ethical considerations over the use in research of material originally collected for clinical purposes. Several institutes are collaborating in pathology translational research and in supporting key clinical-research initiatives and education efforts. These include the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, the Joint Task Force National Capital Region Medical (and its subordinate units, the Joint Pathology Center and Walter Reed National Military Medical Center), other organizations in the Department of Defense, and Veterans' Affairs. These collaborations will be part of a new era of intergovernmental and public-private partnerships that will create vital research and clinical interactions. The celebrated history of AFIP and its importance to the broader research, clinical and academic communities provide the perfect foundation.

Quality Assurance in Biobanking for Pre-Clinical Research

“…Some individual biobanks might not be able to follow sufficiently these standards and might merge with others with the aim conducting a shared QA-based sample management [39,40]. QA standards might most probably even more efficiently established and maintained in a centralized infrastructure, because of a higher degree of similar workflows, environmental and infrastructural settings and parameters.…”