PROJECT SUMMARY/ ABSTRACT The purpose of this Biospecimen and Pathology Core is to provide tissue, cells and pathology services to the three research projects and career enhancement, or research development awardees covered by this application. To achieve these goals, the Lymphoma SPORE combines pathology resources from the Dan L Duncan Comprehensive Cancer Center (DLDCCC) at Baylor College of Medicine (BCM) and its affiliated institutions with those of Houston Methodist Hospital to ensure adequate numbers and timely delivery of tissue/blood samples for the projected needs of SPORE and external investigators. The proposed core resource will therefore co-ordinate acquisition of tissue for banking from lymphoma and CLL patients at affiliated hospitals in the Texas Medical Center, by relying on established tissue collection and distribution systems. The capacity to obtain samples from multiple affiliated hospitals will greatly increase the number of specimens we are able to analyze, store and distribute from our diverse catchment area. The core also provides pathology services including routine tissue preparation, immunohistochemical staining, laser capture microdissection, preparation of tissue microarrays, flow cytometry, detection of minimal residual disease and in situ hybridization for viral RNAs. These tasks are essential to the successful completion of planned experiments in each project and will be performed by expert pathologists and histotechnologists with substantial experience in providing core services to SPORE investigators. This core is also responsible for coordinating supply of tissue to the Patient-Derived Xenograft and Advanced In Vivo Models Core of the DLDCCC, resources that will be of particular use to our investigators. This core also accesses a cancer genetics laboratory for specialized molecular studies including FISH and sequencing and bioinformatics support to support tissue-banking software needs for the lymphoma SPORE. Bioinformatics support comes from the DLDCCC Biomedical Informatics Group that supports OpenSpecimen, a secure web-based modular application that serves as the unifying hub for all DLDCCC-based biorepositories, including the BCM Breast and Lymphoma SPOREs. In the last funding period, the Resource Allocation Committee approved 25 requests from SPORE and external investigators for tissue or blood samples.