The value of a tumor bank in the development of cancer research in Brazil: 13 years of experience at the a C camargo hospital.

This article discusses the importance of biobanking to health research advancement in developing countries by analyzing the impact of the establishment of a tumor bank at the A C Camargo Hospital, a cancer care and research center located in Sao Paulo, Brazil. For the past 13 years, the human biological samples provided by the tumor bank have been used by investigators to study various types of cancer. We analyze the impact of biobanking in the overall quality of research projects performed at our institution.

Gene expression profile associated with response to doxorubicin-based therapy in breast cancer.

Purpose: This study was designed to identify genes that could predict response to doxorubicin-based primary chemotherapy in breast cancer patients.

Experimental Design: Biopsy samples were obtained before primary treatment with doxorubicin and cyclophosphamide. RNA was extracted and amplified and gene expression was analyzed using cDNA microarrays.

An algorithm to classify amino acid sequences into protein groups of Bothrops jararacussu venomous gland.

An algorithm for automatic clustering of database protein sequences from Bothrops jararacussu venomous gland, according to sequence similarities of their domains, is described. The program was written in C and Perl languages. This algorithm compares a domain with each ORF protein sequence in the database.

A transcript finishing initiative for closing gaps in the human transcriptome.

We report the results of a transcript finishing initiative, undertaken for the purpose of identifying and characterizing novel human transcripts, in which RT-PCR was used to bridge gaps between paired EST clusters, mapped against the genomic sequence. Each pair of EST clusters selected for experimental validation was designated a transcript finishing unit (TFU). A total of 489 TFUs were selected for validation, and an overall efficiency of 43.

The generation and utilization of a cancer-oriented representation of the human transcriptome by using expressed sequence tags.

Whereas genome sequencing defines the genetic potential of an organism, transcript sequencing defines the utilization of this potential and links the genome with most areas of biology. To exploit the information within the human genome in the fight against cancer, we have deposited some two million expressed sequence tags (ESTs) from human tumors and their corresponding normal tissues in the public databases. The data currently define approximately 23,500 genes, of which only approximately 1,250 are still represented only by ESTs.