1. Description of the Core Since the establishment of the Molecular Biology/Gene Expression Core in 1997, this facility has been an invaluable resource to the members of the Center through the following measures: 1) Acquiring and distributing important digestive disease related reagents. 2) Acquiring and supporting the maintenance of a dozen analytic instruments as well as software critical for the quantification and analysis of gene expression. 3) Subsidizing the cost of important technical services important in the molecular analysis of data generated from Center related investigation. Services include access to the Penn Microarray Facility, bioinformatics datamining support through the Penn Genomic Frontiers Institute, and newly established access to the Molecular Biomarker Services through the Penn Center of Excellence in Environmental Toxicology. 4) Maintenance of a human sample biorepository with annotated clinical metadata. The success of this Core can be measured by examining several parameters: A) Core usage, B) Evidence of collaborative work amongst Center Investigators as well as the expansion of the Junior Investigator (associate members) base, and C) Publications relating to the use of this Core. The Core has undergone significant maturation in format and services in order to augment the scientific accomplishments of investigators utilizing the Molecular Biology Core/Gene Expression Core. Due to the growing level of interest in the acquisition of human tissues and biosamples by the Center membership. Dr. Wu has made an investment into the development of a Human Sample Biorepository and an associated Database Repository, which has been embraced by Penn's School of Medicine and endorsed by the External Advisory Board. While these two components of the Core have had a significant level of utilization over the past 5 years, moving forward for the next funding cycle, the Core will enhance the collection of clinical metadata along with the archiving of human biospecimens by partnering with biobanking initiatives recently launched by the Penn School of Medicine. These new initiatives will include the use of tissue inventory software caTissue Suite v1.1 to archive tissue specimens and the use of the Abramson Cancer Center Applied Research Database (ACCARD) to query clinical metadata collected in the EPIC electronic medical record and stored in the Penn Data Store.