Neuro-oncology Brain Repository

The UW Neuro-oncology Brain Repository is the first of its kind, leveraging world-class expertise in neuropathology and neuroscience research to study the biology and evolution of glioblastoma and other types of brain cancer.

Our mission: to honor and learn

Our mission is to honor the legacy of patients with this terrible disease and to learn how the disease develops, how it impacts the brain and the individual, how treatments alter this course and how the tumor responds to evade treatment.  Through analysis using a variety of traditional and cutting-edge technologies, it is our hope that we can learn how brain cancers and their treatments affect both the tumor cells and healthy brain tissue, identify potential therapeutic targets, and ultimately use this information to advance therapeutic options for future patients.

Ultimately we envision the autopsy program to work hand in hand with studies on neurosurgical resection specimens from the Neurosurgical Tissue Repository (NTR). Specifically, the goals for the Neurooncology Brain Repository (in conjunction with and requisite for) studies of NTR specimens are to:

  • Understand molecular evolution of gliomas, particularly in association with surgical, radiation, and chemotherapeutic interventions, to understand mechanisms/pathways of tumor progression and to develop strategies to impede this process.
  • Develop a living biobank from initial resection, re-resection, and brain autopsy materials to probe for mechanisms and test current and novel therapeutics with respect to tumor progression and molecular pathway changes as gliomas evolve. 
  • Using clinical and post-mortem (ex vivo) imaging, correlate neuropathological changes with radiographic and clinical features to better understand and develop biomarkers sensitive to tumor progression and other processes such as radiation necrosis. 
  • Understand the mechanisms of neurotoxicity to the brain caused by adjuvant therapies in order to design better targeted therapeutics that have reduced side effect profiles.