Oncology Research Unit (Cancer Research)
Paediatric Tumour Bank and Molecular Diagnostics
Research Directions
The Children's Hospital at Westmead's Paediatric Tumour Bank was established to facilitate research into the causes and treatment of childhood malignancy both within the Hospital as well as to the broader scientific community in Australia and internationally. The Tumour Bank currently has available nearly 20,000 specimens from over 2,000 registered patients, representing over 50 malignancy types and subtypes. Our collection includes solid tumours specimens, whole blood, bone marrow (both whole and dried onto slides), serial leukaemia specimens as well as cerebral spinal fluid and plasma samples. The specimens have been collected during the normal course of treatment undertaken by patients. Once diagnosis is complete, any residual tissue is then transferred to cryovials, snap frozen in liquid nitrogen and stored at -80°C. The Tumour Bank database maintains a record of each sample in our collection along with basic clinical data pertaining to the specimen. Patient confidentiality is paramount with the Tumour Bank and at no time is identifying patient information released to researchers or the public. Patient or parental consent is obtained prior to storage of the specimen.
| Applications for tumour specimens from the Tumour Bank are always welcome - go to www.chw.edu.au/tumourbank for further details. |
The Children's Hospital at Westmead Tumour Bank is a founding member of the Australasian Biospecimens Network. For further details go to their website.
For further information you can e-mail us.
Current Projects
Research based on tumour bank specimens has been expanded and current projects within the Tumour Bank include:
1. Molecular diagnosis of childhood malignancy using microarray technology
Currently, the pathological examination of tumour tissue, along with additional laboratory information from cellular studies forms the basis for diagnosis. This allows for the detection of cancer often when the patients display critical symptoms and where the cancer is at an advanced or aggressive stage. In many cases the patients will then be required to undergo highly intensive, but sometimes ineffectual, treatment. Through improved understanding of how tumour and patient genetics differ and how this effects cancer progression and patient outcome, we will open up new possibilities for cancer treatment.
New molecular technologies, along with bioinformatics, are being developed and these will enable researchers to more readily examine the genetic profiles of tumours and patients. This will allow for the specific classification of cancer, which is essential in guiding treatment. With the advent of 'microarray' technology, it is now feasible to analyse greater than 10,000 genes in one experiment, creating a profiles for the particular tumour sample. The aim of the overall project is to use data mining of large sets of biological data generated from high-through-put technologies to assist (i) biological researchers in understanding the genetic mechanisms governing the disease and (ii) clinicians in understanding how new patients will respond to different treatments.
3. The Pathology Support Laboratory
Vital to using human tissue in research applications are the availability of specialised research-oriented histopathology services. The availability of such specialised histopathology services are currently limited with cancer researchers often relying on collaborative relationships and goodwill with hospital pathologists whose time is often limited. More recently, new technologies have been developed which are designed to facilitate translational research using human tissue, but require specialised technical expertise.
Within the Children's Hospital at Westmead Tumour Bank we have established a Pathology Support Laboratory (PSL) to assist NSW cancer researchers and those working with the Australasian Biospecimens Network - Oncology, to facilitate research through the provision of specialised expertise in research-based tissue handling techniques. The PSL supports cancer researchers accessing tissue stored via the Australasian Biospecimens Network through
- the provision of basic tissue sectioning and standard stains, as well as high through-put immunohistochemistry for known or novel targets.
- the creation of tissue microarrays which will allow for the simultaneous examination of hundred of tissue 'spots' arranged on a microscope slide.
- the provision of a digital platform for scanning microscope slides which generate high resolution images of tissue sections, which can be viewed at remote sites via the internet, facilitating pathology review by experts around the world, and thus enabling researchers access 'virtual' microscopy facilities.
Group Leader Profile - Daniel Catchpoole
BAppSc (Biomedical), PhD (UNSW) 1995. Dr Catchpoole has 20 years full time laboratory research experience into the molecular basis of paediatric malignancies and has extensive experience with the analysis of gene expression as well as cellular and molecular applications associated with research into acute lymphoblastic leukaemia. Since completing his undergraduate degree in 1987, Dr Catchpoole's scientific achievements and publications have centred on paediatric malignancy, specifically acute lymphoblastic leukaemia and neuroblastoma, as well as cancer prone syndromes in children, namely Beckwith Wiedemann syndrome.
Dr Catchpoole was appointed Head of the Tumour Bank at The Children's Hospital at Westmead in 2001 and is one of the founding members of the Australian Biospecimens Network (hyperlink - www.abrn.net). Dr Catchpoole has established microarray technology within the Oncology Research Unit of The Children's Hospital at Westmead. Dr Catchpoole also conducts lectures for Sydney University (Course: Molecular Biology of Development) on the subject of microarray analysis of gene expression.
The Tumor Bank Staff (L to R): Dachuan Guo, Dr Glenn Stone (CSIRO collaborator), Daniel Catchpoole, Kerrie Jones, Mark Wheeler.
Students Currently Supervised by Dr Catchpoole
- Mr Franco Ubaudi - PhD (p.t.), Faculty of IT, University of Technology Sydney.
- Mr Steven Wolf - PhD, Faculty of Medicine, Sydney University
(Australian Postgraduate Award Scholar)
- Mr Ahmad AlOqaily - PhD, Faculty of IT, University of Technology Sydney.
Grants and Financial Support
2004-2009 National Health and Medical Research Council Enabling Grant, 'The Australian Biospecimens Network - Oncology', Chief Investigators: Lisa Devereux, Dan Catchpoole, Anna de Fazio, Andrew Holloway, Richard Lake, Bruce Robinson, Christopher Schmidt, Heather Thorne and Nik Zeps. $1.75 million.
2005 Australian Rotary Health Research Fund (ARHRF/District 9680), "Identifying a simple gene expression profile which is predictive of outcome for childhood acute lymphoblastic leukaemia.”, Chief Investigator: Dan Catchpoole. Co-investigators: Luce Dalla-Pozza, Glenn Stone, Dachuan Guo. $28512.
2005-2007 The Cancer Institute of New South Wales Infrastructure Grant, "Establishment of a Pathology Support Unit for NSW Cancer Researchers.”, Chief Investigators: Dan Catchpoole, Susan Arbuckle, Jane Carpenter, Anthony Henwood. $405880.
2005 International Travel Scholarship (For Health Care Professionals involved in the field of leukaemias, lymphomas, myeloma and related blood and bone marrow cancers): Leukaemia Foundation of NSW. Investigator: Dachuan Guo
2005 National Travel Scholarship (For Health Care Professionals involved in the field of leukaemias, lymphomas, myeloma and related blood and bone marrow cancers): Leukaemia Foundation of NSW. Investigator: Dachuan Guo.
2005-2007 Australian Postgraduate Award $75,000: Steven Wolf
2007-2009 Australian Rotary Health Research Fund Scholarship $75,000: Ahmad Aloqaily
Recent Publications
Ubaudi F., Catchpoole D.R., Guo D., Simoff S.J., and Kennedy P.J., "Microarray data mining: selecting trustworthy genes with Gene Feature Ranking." In Domain Driven Data Mining: Domain Problems and Applications 2008 (Eds: Longbing Cao, Philip S. Yu, Chengqi Zhang, Huaifeng Zhang), Springer, in press.
Kennedy P.J., Simoff S.J., Catchpoole D.R., Skillicorn D.B., Ubaudi F. and Al Oqaily A., "Integrative visual data mining to biomedical data: Investigating cases in Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and Acute Lymphoblastic Leukaemia.", (Eds S. J. Simoff, M. Böhlen and A. Mazeika), in Lecture Notes in Computer Science, Volume 4404, Visual Data Mining: Theory, Techniques and Tools for Visual Analytics., Springer, Heidelberg, 367-388, 2008.
Catchpoole D.R., Guo D., Jiang H., Biesheuvel C. "Predicting outcome in childhood acute lymphoblastic leukaemia using gene expression profiling: Prognostication or protocol selection?", Blood, 111(4), 2486-2487, 2008.
Margetts C.D.E., Morris M., Astuti D., Gentle D.C., Cascon A., McRonald F.E., Catchpoole D.R., Robledo M., Neumann H.P.H., Latif F. and Maher E.R., "Evaluation of a functional epigenetic approach to identify promoter region methylation in phaeochromocytoma.", Endocrine-Related cancer, 15, , 2008.
Catchpoole D., DeFazio A., Devereux L., Fleming M., Hof M., Schmidt C., Thorne H., and Zeps N., "The importance of biorepository networks: The Australian Biospecimen Network-Oncology". Australian Journal for Medical Science, 28(1), 16-20, 2007.
Craig C. Whiteford , Sven Bilke, Braden T. Greer, Qingrong Chen, Till A. Braunschweig, Nicola Cenacchi, Jun S. Wei, Malcolm A. Smith, Peter Houghton, Christopher Morton, Patrick C. Reynolds, Richard Lock, Richard Gorlick, Chand Khanna, Carol J. Thiele, Mikiko Takikita, Daniel Catchpoole, Stephen M. Hewitt and Javed Khan., "Credentialing preclinical pediatric xenograft models using gene expression and tissue microarray analysis.", Cancer Research, 67(1), 32-40, 2007.
Catchpoole D.R., Lail A., Guo D., Chen Q., Khan J., "Identification of gene expression profiles that segregate patients with childhood acute lymphoblastic leukaemia: An independent validation study.", Leukaemia Research, 31(12), 1741-1747, 2007.
Stallings R.L., Nair P., Maris J.M., Catchpoole D.R., McDermott M., Breatnach F. and O'Meara A., "High resolution analysis of chromosomal breakpoints and genomic instablility identifies PTPRD as a candidate tumor suppressor gene in neuroblastoma.", Cancer Research, 66(7), 3673-3680, 2006.
Bilke S., Chen Q-R., Westerman F., Schwab M., Catchpoole D.R., and Khan J., "Inferring a tumour progression model for neuroblastoma from genomic data.", J. Clinical Oncology, 23 (29), 2005.
Astuti D., Latif F., Wagner K., Gentle D., Cooper W.N., Catchpoole D.R., Grundy R., Ferguson-Smith A.C. and Maher E., "Epigenetic alteration at the DLK-GTL2 imprinted domain in human neorplasia provides evidence for trans interaction between DLK1 and GTL2.", British Journal of Cancer, 92, 1574-1580, 2005.
Margetts C.D.E., Astuti D., Gentle D.C., Cooper W.N., Cascon A., Catchpoole D.R., Robledo M., Neumann H.P.H., Latif F. and Maher E.R., "Epigenetic analysis of HIC1, CASP8, FLIP, TSP1, DcR1, DcR2, DR4, DR5, KvDMR1, H19 and preferential 11p15.5 maternal allele loss in VHL and sporadic phaeochromocytomas.", Endocrine-Related Cancer, 12, 161-172, 2005.
This document was updated on Thursday, 4th September 2008
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