The Queensland Children’s Tumour Bank (QCTB) is an openly accessible paediatric tumour tissue bank. The facility aims to assist as many quality scientific projects as possible, both large and small, in order to increase knowledge about childhood cancer and improve outcomes for patients.
The bank is located in the Centre for Children’s Health Research building, adjacent to the Queensland Children’s Hospital. This close proximity to the QCH operating theatres and Queensland Health Pathology, enables samples to be obtained rapidly after surgery.
The QCTB has close ties with other tumour and tissue banks through the Australian and New Zealand Children’s Haematology Oncology Group Biobanking Network and is a member of the Brain Cancer Biobanking Australia consortium. Our work is made possible through the support from the Children's Hospital Foundation Queensland.
We collect material from ALL TYPES of solid tumours, as well as "liquid tumours" such as leukaemia. In addition to traditional ways of storing tissue, such as snap-freezing, we specialise in the long term banking of live tumour cells. We currently have specimens available (in a range of formats) from hundreds of paediatric patients with a diverse range of cancer types (such as leukaemia, lymphoma and solid tumours from a range of organs).
Any not-for-profit academic investigators, local or international, who wish use these samples to advance an oncology research project are welcome to apply for specimens. Tumour samples are provided free of charge and, whenever possible, in an ongoing collaborative basis. Although samples are provided freely, researchers are required to pay for sample shipping to their laboratory. We currently have collaborations underway with cancer research teams around Australia, as well as in Canada, the, USA, UK, Germany and The Netherlands.
For more information, please contact the QCTB at tumourbank@uq.edu.au.
Our staff and students
A/Prof Andrew Moore is the Director of the Queensland Children's Tumour Bank.