Victorian Cancer Biobank

The Victorian Cancer Biobank (VCB) is an open-access, not-for-profit tissue resource established by the Victorian Government, Australia and our partnered health care providers to facilitate translational research. Cancer Council Victoria is the lead agency where Central Operations is based. The VCB provides cancer researchers with a diverse selection of high-quality biospecimens and derivatives, comprehensively annotated with de-identified clinical outcome data. Clinical follow up and outcome information is collected for up to 10 years. Since operations commenced in 2006, more than 34,000 Victorians undergoing cancer and other surgery have donated blood and surplus tissue to the Biobank.The VCB is now one of the largest multi-centre collection facilities of its kind in the world, collecting tissue and blood from donors at 25 public and private hospitals in metropolitan Melbourne. Operating as a hub-and-spokes collection model with a centralised database across Victoria, the VCB’s success is due to its collaboration with local pathologists, medical oncologists, surgeons and other hospital personnel. Five academic teaching hospitals across Melbourne currently house our main Tissue Banks; Austin Health, Eastern Health, Melbourne Health, the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre and Monash Health. Each Tissue Bank also collaborates with multiple satellite sites to collect critical masses of specimens for research projects. Specially trained tissue bank staff obtain patient consents, collect, process and store tissue and blood samples. Clinical pathologists select fresh tissue for research as matched pairs (tumour and adjacent normal) within an hour of surgical resection. The majority of solid tissue samples have a corresponding blood sample taken pre-operatively. Blood samples are also processed and stored within two hours of collection. The VCB’s standard in tissue procurement has enabled us to support basic, translational and large omics studies across the world.