OvCaRe Research Platforms

Gynaecologic Tissue Bank

The OvCaRe Tissue Bank is housed within the Vancouver General Hospital Department of Pathology and the British Columbia Cancer Agency. This bank contains tumour samples from over 1100 patients. The tissue samples in the bank are collected from consenting patients within 30 minutes of surgical excision and stored in a variety of forms, including snap frozen, formalin fixed, and as live cells. As of 2007, serum, plasma, and buffy coat are also being collected for every case within the tissue bank. In addition to providing research material for OvCaRe researchers, the OvCaRe Tumour Bank is more active than any other tumour bank in sending samples to research collaborators and has already contributed to 43 national and international research projects.

This and other tissue banks provide the foundation for translational research in medicine. In order for these samples to be used by current technologies such as Illumina whole transcriptome sequencing, the samples must be of extremely high quality. We have currently sent a selection of our samples to The Cancer Genome Atlas Project for analysis and were told by researchers there that our samples were among the best quality that they had encountered around the world.

Researchers requesting tissue from the Gynaecologic Tissue Bank can contact Dr. Blake Gilks to discuss.

Serum Bank

The OvCaRe serum bank is located at the British Columbia Cancer Agency. This bank contains over 10,000 serum samples that have been submitted for CA-125 testing as well as samples collected from patients who have consented to have their tumours submitted to the OvCaRe Tumour Bank. Like the tumour bank, these resources are available to collaborating researchers.

Ovarian Cancer Tissue Microarrays

The ovarian cancer tissue microarray facility from all available early ovarian cancer cases in the province for the period 1984-2000 (541 samples) was created by Dr. Blake Gilks and is the largest tissue microarray of early ovarian cancer samples. This population based series was generated in the Genetic Pathology Evaluation Center (GPEC), a laboratory supported by a Michael Smith Foundation for Health Research Unit Grant and is being used by over 20 different local and international collaborative studies. Two other ovarian cancer tissue microarrays are also built and are available to interested collaborators. All samples in the tissue microarray are linked to clinical outcomes at the Cheryl Brown Ovarian Cancer Outcomes Unit.

The Cheryl Brown Ovarian Cancer Outcomes Unit

Named in recognition of the late Cheryl Brown, a tireless advocate for ovarian cancer patients, this unit is located at the British Columbia Cancer Agency and is led by Drs. Nhu Le, Anna Tinker, and Kenneth Swenerton. The Unit’s initial tactic was to identify and record treatment and outcomes data for those women referred to the British Columbia Cancer Agency for management of their ovarian cancer in the years 1984-2003.  From this effort, the Gynecologic Tissue Bank was able to obtain tumour samples collected at the time of diagnosis and at the time of relapse .  The tissue microarrays are only valuable if accompanied by the clinical data supplied by the Outcomes Unit. It is our hope that this unique opportunity to integrate comprehensive treatment and outcomes data with corresponding tissue specimens will enable researchers to identify indicators of tumour behaviour to guide successful treatment.  We have recorded approximately 3400 surface epithelial ovarian carcinomas over the past 25 years in a database and collection of prospective cases is ongoing.  Additionally, it has contributed to over 40 research projects and is in the process of developing a prospective data collection tool. Researchers requesting more information may contact

Culture Bank Core Facility

This tissue culture/cell biology facility is located at the Child and Family Research Institute (BCCW Hospital). This facility was established by Dr. Nelly Auersperg, the world leader in culture of ovarian surface epithelium. The cell culture models of ovarian surface epithelium are used to study both normal ovarian and transformed ovarian surface epithelium cells and monitor response to therapies. This lab has distributed several hundred tissue cultures of immortalized cells worldwide and continues to distribute over 100 samples annually to study putative oncogenes, tumour suppressors, and other aspects of ovarian cancer biology and pathology. For more information on this facility contact Ms. Clara Salamanca

Ovarian Cancer Xenografts

This OvCaRe core facility is run by Dr. YZ Wang who has been able to grow a wide spectrum of ovarian cancers under the renal capsule of immunodeficient mice. Prior to this work, it was only possible to grow the highest grade, most aggressive tumours as xenografts. Dr. Wang has used fresh samples from the ovarian cancer tumour bank to establish more than 22 serial transplantable xenograft lines and establishment of new tumour lines is ongoing. These lines provide a unique resource and some of them are well-characterized at a molecular level (e.g. one line carries a germline mutation in BRCA1 and a second line carries a mutation in BRCA2) and can be used to test new therapies.

Antibody Generation Core Facility

This facility is located in Victoria and is led by Dr. Brad Nelson, who was recruited from Seattle to be the Director of the Deeley Research Centre at the BC Cancer Agency in Victoria. Antibodies developed by this facility can be tested for diagnostic or therapeutic utility in collaboration with the other core facilities.