Donating Tissue to Research

Donating Tissue to Research on Pediatric and Carney Triad GIST

The samples of tumors removed from patients during surgery are extremely valuable to researchers who are striving to identify the causes of GIST in children, adolescents, and young adults. If you are scheduling surgery for yourself or your child, please consider having frozen tissue samples saved to donate to research. Only when the cause has been identified can a cure be found.

Worthy researchers include the following (listed in alphabetical order). Please contact the investigator for instructions on completing any needed paperwork and having the samples shipped.

Cristina R. Antonescu, MD Department of Pathology Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center 1275 York Ave. New York, NY 10021 Phone: 212-639-5721 E-mail: antonesc@mskcc.org
J. Aidan Carney, MD, PhD, FRCP Emeritus Professor of Pathology Plummer North 10 Mayo Clinic 200 Southwest 1st Street Rochester MN 55905 Phone: 507-284-2691 Fax:507-284-5036 E-mail: carney.aidan@mayo.edu	Our goals are to identify the cause of pediatric GIST, including our focus on the familial form of the tumor, in order to develop 1) designer drugs to treat the tumor and its metastases and 2) molecular methods to prevent emergence of the tumors in patients who have the genetic trait to develop them.
Andrew K. Godwin, PhD Director, Clinical Molecular Genetics Laboratory (215-728-2756) Director, Biosample Repository Department of Medical Oncology Fox Chase Cancer Center Philadelphia, Pennsylvania contact:JoEllen Weaver (215-214-1633) JoEllen.Weaver@fccc.edu	GIST tumors are commonly associated with mutations in genes referred to as c-KIT and PDGFRalpha. This is much less common in pediatric GIST compared to adult GIST. Our laboratory is using molecular genetic approaches to study tumors without mutations to understand their biologic differences and to aid in identifying potential therapies to treat these tumor types.
Constantine A. Stratakis MD, D(Med)S Chief, Section on Endocrinology and Genetics DEB, NICHD, National Institutes of Health Building 10, CRC, Room 1-3330 10 Circle Drive, MSC1103 Bethesda, MD 20892 Phone:301-496-4686/496-6683 Fax: 301-402-0574/480-0378 E-mail: stratakc@mail.nih.gov	Our goal is to identify genes and therapies for familial GISTs and related conditions in the context of inherited syndromes that are not due to the known KIT and PDFGRA mutations.