9.1.11 TISSUE ACQUISITION AND CELLULAR/MOLECULAR SHARED SERVICE The Tissue Acquistion and Cellular/Molecular Analysis Shared Service (TACMASS) performs two main functions for the Arizona Cancer Center (AZCC): 1. Tissue Acquisition: TACMASS cpilects, preserves, and banks biospecimens obtained from consented AZCC surgical patients. Banked bibspeciniens (frozen and formalin fixed, paraffin embedded tissues, genomic DNA, plasma, serum and urine) are annotated with clinical and pathological infomiation, which enables investigators to query a database to identify appropriate biospecimens that may be useful for analysis under University of Arizona Institutional Review Board (IRB) approved protocols. The overall goal is to provide cancer researchers with access to a repository of high quality, carefully collected and annotated human tumor tissue and body fluids for current and future translational studies in cancer. 2. Molecular and pathological analysis of tissues and cells: TACMASS provides AZCC researchers with access to state of the art molecular analytical tools using techniques of routine histology, immunohistochemistry. Laser Capture Microdissection, and the construction of Tissue Microarrays. TACMASS assists researchers with experimental design and the establishment of histological scoring strategies, and consults with investigators to analyze and interpret pathological findings in the overall context of the whole project. One ofthe primary goals of TACMASS is to provide AZCC researchers from all five programs with high quality pathological analysis and interpretation of experimental data. The Service is directed by Ray Nagle, M.D., Ph.D. Co-Directors are Achyut Bhattacharyya M.D. and Wenxin Zheng, M.D. The service is staffed with four research specialists.