Topic: researcher wants to start a tissue bank

http://www.timesunion.com/AspStories/story.asp?storyID=860033

here is an article from our local paper about a young researcher who carries the brca 2 genetic mutation, has had a double preventive mastectomy and wants to start a tissue bank for study of healthy breast tissue from women who carry genetic mutations for cancer but who have not yet been diagnosed.

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As a biologist, Keith wanted to donate her breast tissue to science, but no one would take it. Keith discovered that there are tissue banks for healthy breast tissue and depositories for cancerous breast tissue and tumors. But nobody collects tissue from people like Keith who carry the genetic mutation.

"It kills me that the tissue went to waste," she said. Researchers looking at the disease "have the beginning and the end," but are missing everything in the middle.

Keith plans to change that. With the blessing of her UAlbany advisors, she's trying to start a tissue bank to handle material donated by carriers of the mutation. She hopes to create cell lines from the material to research what might trigger the cancer, and find ways to prevent or reverse the disease.