# National Mesothelioma Virtual Bank, Continued Innovation

> **NIH ALLCDC U24** · UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH AT PITTSBURGH · 2020 · $1,068,089

## Abstract

Project Summary/Abstract
The National Mesothelioma Virtual Bank (NMVB) consents patients to provide biospecimens
(blood products and tissue) together with demographic data, occupational history and clinical
data (stage, treatment and survival information) to the mesothelioma research community. The
University of Pittsburgh (Pitt) is the coordinating site, and the NMVB protocol is in place at
three partnering sites, New York University, Roswell Park Cancer Institute and University of
Pennsylvania. Our specific aims are to: 1) Continue to serve the mesothelioma cancer research
community by collecting and distributing tissue, blood and the aforementioned data as well as
increasing the NMVB cohort to 2400 patients. We will continue to document and continually
evaluate the usefulness of the NMVB to the scientific community and measure its impact in
collaboration with the Mesothelioma Applied Research Foundation; 2) Expand the NMVB to the
University of Maryland as a site and add fresh frozen tissue and blood product collection at
Roswell Park Cancer Institute. We will also add 350 cases donated by Merck Research Labs;
and 3) Automate annotation of biospecimens through extraction of clinical, outcomes, and
pathology data from electronic health records and cancer registry systems. We will deploy and
implement a scalable informatics solution to maximize the effectiveness of the data extraction
process across collaborating sites which will allow linkage to other national tissue and data
sharing networks.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 9961449
- **Project number:** 5U24OH009077-14
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH AT PITTSBURGH
- **Principal Investigator:** MICHAEL JOHN BECICH
- **Activity code:** U24 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** ALLCDC
- **Fiscal year:** 2020
- **Award amount:** $1,068,089
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2016-09-01 → 2021-08-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/9961449

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 9961449, National Mesothelioma Virtual Bank, Continued Innovation (5U24OH009077-14). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-24 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/9961449. Licensed CC0.

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