Andrew Glass, MD

On behalf of the NCI Cooperative Breast Cancer Tissue Resource
Co-Investigators: Clara Milikowski, MD, University of Miami School of Medicine, Miami, FL; José Russo, MD, Fox Chase Cancer Center, Philadelphia, PA, and Barbara Ann Zehnbauer, PhD, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis MO

The Cooperative Breast Cancer Tissue Resource is a "virtual tissue bank" containing extremely high quality samples of breast cancer tissue and related clinical follow-up data, collected from 9,000 cases. This resource includes pathological specimens collected at multiple regional hospitals that remain at each of four participating institutions (University of Miami, Florida; Washington University, St. Louis, Missouri; Kaiser Permanente, Portland, Oregon; Fox Chase Cancer Center, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) and is used as a resource for large studies requiring high quality specimens with extensive high quality patient data, thereby supporting progress toward developing clinically useful markers. Established and funded by the National Cancer Institute for 14 years, the resource centrally supports breast cancer research and discovery efforts that can lead to improved prevention, treatment, and ultimately cure. Support from BCRF will enable the NCI to maintain and continue to expand this resource for the breast cancer research community.

Mid-Year Progress Report:
Since the grant began in October, The following CBCTR committees were active: Coordinating Committee; Pathologists’ Subcommittee; Data Managers’ Subcommittee, and Research Evaluation panel (REP). Effective communications and progress updates were provided by each of the four CBCTR sites through monthly conference calls of each committee. All participants discuss local progress in CBCTR projects, identify any issues that are obstacles, refine existing coding definitions or resource practices, receive feedback and announcements from NCI, and ensure agreement on resource action plans. Face-to-face meetings and NCI site visits take place two times per year in rotating order, with each site being visited once every two years. Since October, the groups convened in Portland, Oregon, at the Kaiser site to perform an audit of the site and assess progress on all relevant projects.

Bio:
Dr. Glass is a medical oncologist and epidemiologist at the Center for Health Research, Kaiser Permanente Northwest, Portland, Oregon. He, together with Dr. Jose Russo, was one of the four original investigators of the Cooperative Breast Cancer Tissue Resource. His particular interest is in cancer registries and the use of the many linked databases at Kaiser Permanente and elsewhere, organizing clinical and tissue resources to provide investigators with the necessary material for molecular analyses of prognostic markers. He was a Surveyor of Cancer Programs for the Commission on Cancer of the American College of Surgeons for many years and served on the Commission's Executive Committee as liaison from the American Society of Clinical Oncology. His current interests focus particularly on patterns of breast and cervical cancer incidence, both locally and internationally and how they are affected by environmental influences.

Dr. Glass served for 10 years on the Health Services Commission of the State of Oregon, managing the Prioritized List of Health Services for Oregon's program for the poor. In his off hours Dr. Glass is setting up hospital-based cancer registries in Southern India, with the goal both to improve cancer care in the developing world and render useable the vast clinical and tissue resources of that nation.