Health goes high-tech

BY NICOLA WILLIAMS

Cutting-edge treatments designed for New Zealand’s diverse ethnic population are a step closer with the launch of a new tissue bank at Middlemore Hospital today.

Founding clinical director Samar Issa has long wanted to establish a comprehensive, regional collection of human tumour-related research biospecimens.

"It’s the way of the future," she says.

Collaboration with researchers here and overseas and with foreign tissue banks will allow therapies to be designed specifically for New Zealand’s unique population.

It also means our best researchers can stay here rather than go overseas to be in the forefront of research, she says.

Most hospitals in the United States have tissue banks but Christchurch is home to the only other collection in New Zealand.

Dr Issa says that without a North Island tissue bank, research potential was going to waste when removed tumours were simply discarded.

Biospecimens and associated clinical data are important for molecular research into better diagnostic tools and research therapies.

This type of research has produced new, more effective medicines such as Herceptin for breast cancer, Gleevec for chronic myeloid leukaemia and lymphoma treatment Rituximab.

Dr Issa hopes to be able to research medical mysteries such as why one person responds to chemotherapy and another of similar genetic makeup doesn’t.

She says in the United States gene profiles can be done to determine how well a person will respond to cancer treatment.

If they won’t respond well, more aggressive treatments can be planned.

Dr Issa wants to raise awareness so tissue samples can start being collected.

Patients who give written consent will have samples taken when their tumours or bone marrow are removed.

Dr Issa says only a small number of cells need to be taken so one tumour can be used for many research projects.

"There is an ethics committee that decides whether what we want to use the samples for is suitable and of value."

Those who donate to the tissue bank will know they have done something to advance medicine, she says.

Patient confidentiality is paramount, she says, with a dedicated computer system to ensure the samples remain anonymous.

Samples are stored in freezers at minus 80 degrees celsius.

From next year they will be kept in a dedicated space in the basement of the new Edmund Hillary block.

The new tissue bank is being set up with a grant from the Freemasons Roskill Foundation, founding sponsor of the Centre for Clinical Research and Effective Practice. The centre's a charitable trust based at Middlemore Hospital that promotes and manages clinical research.

The centre and the Counties Manukau District Health Board say the tissue bank marks a major step forward in advancing medical research in New Zealand.

The tissue bank will be expanded over the next three years to support cutting-edge research regionally and nationally.

- © Fairfax NZ News