Research at Fox Chase »Research Facilities »Clinical Research

R. Katherine Alpaugh, PhD. Staff Scientist, Director MaryAnn Bilbee, AS MLT(ASCP)MT(HEW) Medical Laboratory Technician, Supervisor Catherine Bingham, PhD. Research Associate Patricia Fittipaldi, AS MLT(ASCP)MT(HEW) Medical Laboratory Technician Kathleen Allen, AS MLT(ASCP) Medical Laboratory Technician Donna Keller, AS MLT(ASCP) Medical Laboratory Technician Dalia Pine, AS MLT(ASCP) Medical Laboratory Technician

Cancer Prevention Pavilion Room P2011 215-214-1634 RK_Alpaugh@fccc.edu

Function

The Protocol Support Laboratory staff work in conjunction with the Protocol Management Office, 1 South nursing floor, infusion room, outpatient laboratory, clinical trials sponsors and principal investigators to coordinate the collection, processing, storage and shipment, and the documentation of all biological samples collected as outlined in the ongoing clinical trials at Fox Chase Cancer Center. These clinical trials are being conducted by Medical Oncology, Radiation Oncology, Prevention and Population Science and Surgical Oncology. The laboratory staff performs the immunological analysis on many of the immunology-based clinical trials, designing the assays to address the scientific objectives of the trials. Some of these assays include ELISA assays to detect and measure sera antibodies, lymphocyte proliferation, ELISPOT, intracellular cytokine staining and flow cytometry. Other standardized clinical testing is completed as required for individual clinical trials.

Description

The Protocol Support Laboratory and the Biosample Repository work closely together to optimize the utilization of patient specimens. Collaborative associations between pharmaceutical companies and/or biotechnical companies have been established to investigate new technologies and the feasibility of incorporating these technologies into clinical trial correlative testing. Correlative studies to enumerate and phenotype both circulating tumor cells and circulating endothelial cells are two of the collaborative associations. These studies have been incorporated into co-operative group trials and in-house investigator-initiated trials.