Translational Research Enhancement Core D: Project Summary The DDBTRCC Translational Research Enhancement Core (GI-TREC Core D) has as its goal to make translating basic research findings made by the Core Center Research Base investigators easier and more efficient to achieve. The GI-TREC was established with the understanding that the uniform and standardized harvest of biospecimens with associated, comprehensive clinical, epidemiological and research data would greatly facilitate and improve the study of gastrointestinal physiology and diseases. The two main components of this repository are the Translational/Clinical Research Unit (GI-TREC-T/CRU) to record clinical data and the Tissue Bank (GI-TREC-TxB), which collects, manages, and annotates patient specimens with both research and clinical data. These patient biospecimens include blood, serum, plasma, peripheral blood monocytes, DNA, RNA, urine, stool, and tissue specimens. Combined, these two integrated units provide a cost-effective, efficient centralized tissue banking system to provide high quality, data-associated specimens to multiple users for individual research projects and for fostering collaborations among multiple users. Core D provides the infrastructure for the cost-effective tissue and data collection that meets Best Practices (BPs) through the establishment of uniform Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) to promote scientific advances by and scientific interactions among Core users, collaborative investigators and young investigators, without each investigator having to invest in the equipment/resources or individually work out specific SOPs. The TREC is aware with bioinformatics resources for translational research being developed and made available by the JHU CTSA and helps instruct our Research Base in its use. The TREC currently holds >40,000 specimens and has been used by 24 current Members, 10 Associate Members and a total of 45 Core Center investigators since the Core Center was funded, and has contributed to 65 publications.