Pancreatic SPORE Core Resources

The Mayo Clinic Cancer Center SPORE in Pancreatic Cancer comprises four Mayo investigator-initiated research projects, and three scientific core resources constructed around a theme of pancreatic cancer and consolidated by an Administrative Core. The SPORE also funds Career Development and Developmental Research Programs.

• Core A: Administrative Core
• Core B: Biostatistics Core
• Core C: Clinical Research Core
• Core D: Tissue Core

Core A: Administrative Core

Core Director:  Gloria M. Petersen, Ph.D.

Core A, the Administrative Core, will continue to provide organizational support for the leadership of the SPORE, facilitate communication among the component activities of the SPORE, serve as the home for pancreatic cancer SPORE advocate activities, and provide an organizational portal for collaborations outside the SPORE.

Core A's functions are to:

1. Provide leadership and coordination between the Research Projects and Cores of the SPORE
2. Assure ongoing integration and participation of the Pancreatic Cancer SPORE in the activities of Mayo Clinic Cancer Center
3. Organize:
   • monthly meetings of the SPORE investigators
   • yearly research retreats and meetings of the External Advisory Committee
   • meetings of the SPORE Scientific Advisory Committee as needed
   • monthly meetings of the SPORE Steering Committee
4. Provide:
   • administrative support to the Developmental Research Program
   • administrative support to the Career Development Program
5. Facilitate:
   • investigator trips to the annual SPORE meetings in the mid-Atlantic region
   • activities of the pancreatic cancer SPORE advocates
6. Prepare the yearly non-competing SPORE application
7. Serve as the administrative liaison between the Mayo Clinic SPORE and the NCI SPORE Program, other SPOREs, and collateral resources, such as PACGENE, PANC4, PanCAN, the Phase II Consortium, and the North Central Cancer Treatment Group
8. Maintain the Mayo Pancreatic Cancer SPORE websites that will be useful to investigators inside and outside the SPORE, as well as patients
9. Coordinate information and communication about SPORE-related research developments to and among the Mayo Clinic SPORE investigators, to the scientific community at large, and to the public.

Core B: Biostatistics Core

Core Director: Ann Oberg, Ph.D.

The Biostatistics Core (BC) provides statistical collaboration and data management support for each of the SPORE projects, the Developmental Research Program projects, the Career Development Program, and the other Cores. The BC prepares the statistical plans for each of the four Projects, provides data management for each of the projects, and prepares data summaries for manuscript preparation. These projects span a wide range of approaches and required analyses. The BC builds upon the innovative and time-tested procedures and systems developed by Mayo Clinic, one of the largest statistical groups in the country whose members have collaborated on more than 10,000 clinical and basic science research studies since 1966. The BC has capability to provide statistical support across different fields, including molecular epidemiologic studies, basic science with translational, immunologic, and correlative studies, gene microarray and imaging, clinical trials, gene and mutation discovery, and information management. The comprehensive nature of the BC assures each SPORE investigator access to statistical expertise that includes collaborative development of study designs and analysis plans, state-of-the-art data analysis and interpretation, data management resources, and abstract and manuscript preparation. The BC also provides a mechanism for the management and integration of both existing and newly collected data through consistent and compatible data handling. Areas of support include database development, data form development and processing, data collection and entry, data archiving, quality control, and management of information relating to the projects and cores. This Core complements and assists the efforts of the Clinical Research and Tissue Cores by providing superior data management and experience with tissue registries. The strengths of the BC are our collaboration with each of the projects and cores, the ability to utilize the established centralized research database, the operational and statistical infrastructure already in place in the SPORE, and the breadth of expertise provided by BC personnel.

Core C: Clinical Research Core

Core Directors:  Gloria M. Petersen, Ph.D. and Charles Erlichman, M.D.

The Clinical Research Core combines the ongoing Patient Registry activities with the activities related to support the SPORE's clinical studies in all four translational research projects. The directors of this Core have extensive experience in studies of human subjects and recruitment of patients to research protocols, both for observational studies and clinical trials. To date, the pancreatic cancer SPORE's Patient Registry activities have been very productive, with accrual of over 3,000 consented subjects (˜325/year), using ultra-rapid case finding, a necessary method for this rapidly fatal cancer. Mayo Clinic diagnoses and/or treats an estimated 500 pancreatic cancer patients per year across its three campuses. In addition, the Registry includes data on 1513 age, sex, race, and region-matched healthy controls. It coordinates its activities very closely with the Biostatistics Core and the Tissue Core to ensure the highest quality annotated biospecimens and pancreatic cancer database for research. The Clinical Research Core will perform the necessary clinical trial management support activities; centrally coordinate all activities with the infrastructure of the Cancer Center CRO to ensure smooth execution of the SPORE's clinical trials; maintain the ultra-rapid case recruitment and registry of pancreatic cancer patients at all three Mayo campuses; and serve as a resource to future developmental research and career development research projects. The close coordination and oversight of the most senior leaders of the SPORE will ensure that all clinical research activities are performed with the highest level of research integrity and adherence to all human subjects regulations.

Core D: Tissue Core

Core Directors:  Thomas Smyrk, M.D. and Lizhi Zhang, M.D.

The goal of the Tissue Core is to provide investigators in the Pancreas SPORE with high quality patient data, DNA, RNA, serum, circulating tumor cells, and pancreas tissues from pancreatic cancer patients, and to make these resources available for future studies. The activities of the Tissue Core will be overseen under the combined leadership of Drs. T. Smyrk and L. Zhang, anatomic pathologists, along with support from Dr. W. Lingle, Director of the TACMA and Co-Director of the BAP Shared Resources of the Mayo Clinic Cancer Center. The activities of the Tissue Core will be conducted in a way that does not compromise patient confidentiality, yet will be as comprehensive as possible in the materials that are provided. The acquisition of human tissue and subsequent cellular/molecular analysis of that tissue within the context of pathology and patient data are key to many laboratory-based studies of cancer. The Mayo Clinic has a strong tradition of ethically sound support of research that links tissue acquisition and patient data records. Paraffin embedded tissues, histological slides, and associated patient charts from surgeries performed since the first decade of the 1900's are maintained in Mayo's Tissue Registry and the Mayo Archives. The Tissue and Cell Molecular Analysis (TACMA) Shared Resource of the Mayo Clinic Cancer Center is a resource of expertise and service for immunohistochemistry, laser capture microdissection, tissue microarray preparation, and digital imaging. Likewise, the Biospecimen Accessioning and Processing (BAP) Shared Resource of the Mayo Clinic Cancer Center is the primary site of accessioning and standardized processing of blood, frozen tissue, and other non-paraffin embedded specimens collected explicitly for research. New methodologies for biospecimen collection, processing, and analysis will be developed in the Tissue Core. These methodologies are shared with other Mayo SPORE Tissue Cores and integrated with services offered by the BAP and TACMA Shared Resources. Tissue Core activities are closely coordinated with the newly formed Clinical Research Core and with the Biostatistics Core to provide seamless linkage of clinical annotations with research biospecimens. Core D is integrated with the existing tissue-oriented Cancer Center shared resources and the other scientific Cores in this SPORE in order to provide a coordinated, centralized, dedicated program for standardized collection, accessioning, processing, and evaluation of biospecimens and patient data from pancreatic cancer patients. Furthermore, the Tissue Core will make biospecimens collected for this SPORE available to the pancreas cancer research community in order to stimulate translational research with the goal of improving prevention and treatment of pancreatic cancer.

• Projects
• Developmental programs
• Prior grant cycle (2003-2008) project summaries