Malignant gliomas are the most common and deadly central nervous system tumor. One aspect of the Transgenic Biobank Core is to assist in production of glioma model systems in the mouse. Core A will isolate neural and tumor stem cell cultures derived from human and mouse brain tissue samples. Specifically, this core has been established to assist PPG member labs in design, production and characterization of transgenic and knockout/knock-in mouse strains and to establish, maintain and manipulate neural stem cell cultures. The core will be responsible for all aspects of mouse engineering and will provide advice on issues relating to mouse genetics, biology and cancer modeling. The Transgenic Biobank Core will establish a repository of human glioma tumor samples, establish and cryopreserve human tumor spheres for further manipulation and analysis. Furthermore, Core A will establish mouse neurospheres and tumor spheres. The core will assist in the manipulation of these cultures for purposes of gene function evaluation. Core A has two specific aims: 1). To engineer and characterize genetically engineered mouse models. 2). To establish and maintain a biorepository of glioma-relevant mouse and human tissues and cells. The Transgenic Biobank Core brings the specialized expertise, personnel and infrastructure well suited to achieve these aims.