Biorepository and Tissue Research Facility resource description

Biorepository & Tissue Research Facility (BTRF): The BTRF occupies 2260 sq. ft. of BSL-2 laboratories, freezer storage, and offices centrally located adjacent to the UVA Hospital and major biomedical research buildings. The BTRF is staffed by 8 FTEs and by part-time MD pathology faculty and is the main core facility at UVA supporting procurement, processing, banking, and analysis of human biospecimens. Services include: tissue procurement from procedures performed at the UVA Hospital and Clinics, access to archival pathology specimens, biofluid processing and aliquoting, formalin fixation &  paraffin embedding (FFPE), standard histology, cryo-histology, automated immunohistochemistry (IHC), tissue microarray (TMA) manufacture, digital slide scanning, robotic nucleic acid extraction, microcapillary electrophoresis, tissue digestion, peripheral blood leukocyte Ficoll isolation, and viable cell freezing. A panel of >40 IHC stains is available, as well as custom IHC workup for investigator-supplied antibodies. The BTRF maintains a tissue bank of annotated frozen and FFPE tissue samples quality-controlled by histologic examination by board-certified pathologists. TMAs that survey neoplastic and normal human tissues are available. The BTRF offers expert consultation in collection and utilization of human biospecimens, pathology consultation and interpretation, and training on the core’s shared laser microdissection, digital photomicroscopy, and cryostat instruments.