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About VIVO Biobank

VIVO Biobank is the UK's leading resource dedicated to storing samples and data of cancers affecting children and young people.

VIVO Biobank was formed by merging the CCLG Tissue Bank and Blood Cancer UK CellBank and is funded by CRUK and Blood Cancer UK. The samples are available for use in ethically-approved and funded research projects and we invite applications from UK-based and international applicants. Sample collection is ongoing.

Our samples

All children and young people with a diagnosis of cancer are eligible to bank samples with VIVO Biobank.  This means that we have samples from a wide range of cancers - both solid and liquid.

The samples we collect from participants with solid tumours are: fresh tissue, fresh-frozen tissue,  formalin fixed paraffin embedded tissue, serum, plasma and DNA. Occasionally, other relevant tissues are collected.

For participants with haematological malignancies we collect: bone marrow, peripheral blood and cerebrospinal fluid. These are processed at UK Biocentre to give aliquots of live cells from bone marrow, bone marrow plasma, peripheral blood plasma. CSF cells and CSF supernatant.  We will also shortly be isolating cDNA from plasma.

Our data

Our samples can be linked to clinical information such as: diagnostic age, sex, immunophenotype, cytogenetics, grading of tumour, site of tumour, relapse status.    

In addition, VIVO Biobank curates the Blood Cancer UK Cord Blood Bank - a collection of 700 HLA-typed normal cord blood samples collected between 1997 and 1999 - and we act as custodians of the Medical Research Council acute lymphoblastic leukaemia (ALL) slide bank, a store of slides from clinical trials.  Both are available for research into leukaemia and related disorders with details available by enquiry.

We also hold samples from the following clinical trials:

  • cells/DNA from bone marrow (ALL2003, ALLR3 trial patients)
  • cells, DNA, CSF and plasma (ALL and AML non-trial patients; ALL2011, ALLTogether and MyeChild trial patients)
  • DNA from bone marrow (ALL97 trial patients)
  • HLA-typed, normal cord blood
  • We also hold a small number of samples from patients with rarer haematological conditions (such as juvenile myelomonocytic leukaemia JMML). 

Detailed information about the application process, along with the necessary forms, can be found in our Applying to VIVO Biobank section.