Ontario Tumour Bank - The Research Institute of St. Joe's Hamilton

About the Ontario Tumour Bank

The OTB logo consists of a diamond shape made of nine smaller diamonds in green and grey, followed by the words ONTARIO TUMOUR BANK.

The Ontario Tumour Bank (OTB) is a biorepository of a wide variety of tumour and blood samples collected from state-of-the-art hospitals and cancer centres across Ontario: St. Joseph’s Healthcare Hamilton, London Health Sciences Centre, The Ottawa Hospital, and Unity Health Toronto.

OTB provides a viable solution for cancer researchers who often face challenges in obtaining the quality and number of biospecimens required for their studies. In doing so, OTB accelerates cancer research for the development of better patient diagnostics and therapies.

A diagram showing how the OTB operates, from clinical data and sample collection at St. Joe’s and three other hospitals, to secure storage, to delivery to cancer researchers.

OTB provides cancer researchers with a diverse selection of high-quality biospecimens and derivatives, comprehensively annotated with de-identified clinical data. Biospecimens are the key to the development and testing of next-generation diagnostics and treatments. Since 2004, OTB has been making this type of research possible by collecting and dispensing the biospecimens needed for high-impact studies.

St. Joe's OTB Team Members

Dr. Vina Alexopoulou
Anatomical Pathology

St. Joe’s Principal Investigator

Dr. Asghar Naqvi
Anatomical Pathology

St. Joe’s Co-Principal Investigator

Dr. Anbreen Zaidi
Coordinator, Ontario Tumour Bank

St. Joe’s Tumour Bank Staff

Gino Celebre
Coordinator, Ontario Tumour Bank

St. Joe’s Tumour Bank Staff

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Services Offered

Fresh tissue, fresh frozen tissue, paraffin-embedded tissue sections, peripheral blood fractions and derivative products such as tissue microarrays (TMA), DNA, and RNA – all with detailed de-identified clinical data. Visit the Ontario Tumour Bank website to learn more about what they offer to researchers.