The biobank have an access/Steering committee where representatives from both sites are involved. The steering committee accept/declines application for the use of the biological material and/or the clinical data in a project based on the scientific strength and the relevance. In addition, one of the Regional Committees for Research Ethics must approve all projects. The PBCB has a management plan, material transfer agreement and a co-authorship agreement.
Our primary objective is to continue the unique biobanking of tissue and liquid biopsies from women with early breast cancer (Stage I and II) in Western Norway through biannual follow-up in an 11-year perspective. This is a large undertaking, which will ultimately establish the basis for early detection of systemic relapse in these women and therapeutic drug monitoring of tamoxifen, both to improve long-term survival of breast cancer patients.
The University of Bergen (UoB) situated next to HUS has multiple core facilities, including genomics, proteomics and metabolomics. In addition, University of Bergen have core facilities related to flow and mass cytometry, molecular imaging, biostatistics and NMR-spectroscopy, and has a computational biology unit with high expertise within most bioinformatics fields.