BioBank Building - The Princess Margaret Hospital Foundation

BioBank Building

What does a BioBank contribute to our effort to conquer cancer?

You know that cancer is a complicated problem to solve. You may also know that the breakthroughs we have found so far have come from the coordination of high quality patient care with clinical trials and basic science research.

Nowhere does the coordination of all this effort to conquer cancer find better expression than in the BioBank.

What is a BioBank? Let me quickly explain.

The battle against cancer has already been relying on what have been called 'tumour banks' - places where tumour tissue is stored and then used by scientists to better understand the disease and ultimately conquer cancer in our lifetime.

The 'tumour bank' has been a vital piece of Princess Margaret Hospital's ability to uncover keys to stopping some cancers in their track.

But we want to go much further. We need to expand this repository into something that can hold a wider and more useful bank of biological specimens. If we are to have the world's best BioBank, then it also needs to be able to house the tissue of healthy, as well as ill, individuals.

And it needs to not just house more biological material but needs specialized staff in information technology to create an in-depth database that tracks all the details related to the tissue and the health history of its donor (while not revealing any personally-identifiable information to researchers).

Princess Margaret Hospital is uniquely positioned to create one of the most important BioBanks in the world. Your past generosity has put us in that enviable, but very responsible position. We treat over 1,000 patients a day in one of the most ethnically diverse cities in the world.

And what's more, the vast majority of our patients say YES when we ask them if they are willing to donate to our BioBank. Click here for some thoughts provided by several BioBank donors.

Over the next two years, the hospital will be building a customized computer system to track all biological tissue samples and link the specimen details with disease and clinical information from the patient information system. $10 million has already been raised but we need another $10 million to complete the funding for this vital project.

We need up-to-date equipment that allows BioBank staff to efficiently preserve specimens in a way that they are available and accessible to researchers in the format that they require.

Researchers are already using the existing BioBank for breakthrough studies, and you can read about some of those studies by clicking here.

The BioBank has many needs, large and small, and below is a sample of some of the items currently required.

We're hoping today that you'll be as generous with a financial donation to the BioBank as our patients are with their own tissue.


	$20 Would cover the purchase of a memory stick (USB key) that would enable BioBank staff to efficiently move data that is tracked and recorded in one location to another.

	$30 Would cover the purchase of a flexible computer keyboard. In a pathology environment, these keyboards are essential as they can be cleaned with water, alcohol, or disinfectant to help prevent the spread of disease and germs.

	$495 Would pay for special paraffin wax blocks that the tissue is placed into. The wax gives stability for the tissue so multiple samples can be safely extracted over time.

	$30,000 Would secure a top-of-the-line storage tank to hold thousands of tissue samples.

	$250,000 Would secure a special Laser Capture Microscope which allows scientists to identify and isolate very small areas of tissue for closer study.

If you would like to make a large donation to help us reach our $10 million goal for the BioBank information system and don't want to make that donation online, please call Zak Bailey, Associate Director, Leadership Giving, Princess Margaret Hospital Foundation, whose direct telephone line is: 416-946-2842. He would be pleased to talk to you about how to support the BioBank with a larger gift.