TRACKER Biobank

Lung cancer is Australia's deadliest cancer. This national project will establish the first Australian tissue and data repository for longitudinally collected metastatic lung cancer samples.

WHY CHOOSE TRACKER

Pioneering Lung Cancer Research Through Innovative Biobanking

We employ cutting-edge biobanking methodologies and EBUS sampling to provide researchers with high-quality samples and clinical follow-up data. Our approach redefines traditional biobanking practices, enabling impactful insights and discoveries in identifying novel therapeutic targets and biomarkers of treatment resistance, ultimately improving patient outcomes.

PIONEERING

With standardised tissue sampling across nine nationwide sites, TRACKER will provide, for the first time, critical lung cancer samples from hundreds of patients for multidisciplinary biological investigations, advancing our understanding of cancer biology and treatment resistance.

FUTURE-PROOFED

Ensuring data integrity and future-proofing this valuable data is at the core of our mission. We implement multi-omics technologies to transform our biological samples into data that can benefit future generations of researchers, including microbiome, genomic, epigenetic, proteomic and metabolic data.

LONGITUDINAL

Utilising minimally invasive EBUS sampling, the TRACKER biobank overcomes existing challenges in acquiring repeated lung cancer samples. EBUS technology also enables sampling across multiple regions and time points within individual patients.

COLLABORATIVE

TRACKER reduces siloed research practices. Through our data-sharing agreements, open-access publication policies, and engaging leading oncology bodies, industry partners, and consumers, we ensure optimal use of our data. This enhances translational research while minimising wastage of valuable tissue samples.

DETAILED

Creating a rich clinically annotated resource is key to our approach. TRACKER provides the first large-scale multi-omic dataset with clinical follow-up in this space. We empower researchers by providing access to this resource, accelerating lung cancer discoveries.

RESEARCH-FOCUSED

Our approach is research-focused, ensuring that the design of the biobank meets the specific needs of scientists, clinicians, and consumers. We prioritise user feedback and collaboration to create a truly impactful resource for the research community.

TRACKER Biospecimens

Snap-Frozen Tissue

Viable Tissue Digest

Blood Specimens

EBUS for DNA extraction:

Primary Tumour
Malignant Lymph Node(s)

Snap frozen EBUS samples are collected at pre-treatment and radiologically detected disease progression.

EBUS for RNA-seq and flow cytometry:

Primary Tumour
Malignant Lymph Node(s)

Cryopreserved single-cell suspension EBUS samples are collected before treatment and at radiologically detected disease progression.

Whole blood (DNA & RNA)
Plasma
Viable Peripheral Blood Monocytes (PBMCs)

Blood specimens are collected pre-treatment, at cycle 1 (week 3), cycle 3 (week 9), during re-staging scans (weeks 12, 24) and at radiologically detected disease progression.

If you’d like more information about the clinical data collected, please download a copy of the parameters:

Eligible Research Projects

In broad terms, the goal of the TRACKER project is to support ethically-approved research that advances personalised medicine for patients with lung cancer. Therefore, broad consent has been sought to utilise the biospecimens and omics data collected for future, as-yet-undetermined research in lung cancer. This includes discovering biomarkers, characterising treatment resistance mechanisms, and developing novel therapeutic strategies.

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