Welcome to the Puerto Rico BioBank (PRBB)

Advancements in cancer research include moving from generalized treatments towards a more “personalized treatment” approach. Personalized cancer care requires extensive clinical and molecular data. Unfortunately, for many populations this data is not available. The Puerto Rico BioBank (PRBB) exists to fill that gap in information by serving as a major resource for collaborative work between researchers, clinicians and physicians that are focused on improving the lives of cancer patients. To accomplish this, the staff in the PRBB provide information on ongoing research studies by visiting hospitals, talking to doctors and engaging with the patient population by informing them about our efforts and ways they can participate in ongoing research studies that will help understand the disease better and contribute to improve cancer outcomes Thanks to patient participation, the PRBB collects, processes, and stores these well-annotated human bio-specimens for use in investigator-initiated translational cancer research. Since 2008, the PRBB has consented over 5,000 patients and has accrued more than 11,000 biospecimens representing the most common cancer types in Puerto Rico, including breast, colon, prostate and endometrial cancers.

Pictured (left to right): Marilin Rosa, Marta Baez, Maria Rojas, José Oliveras, Doug Cress, Ryan Gebert, Edna Gordián, Moraima Oquendo, Sonia Abac, Zindie Rodriguez, Idhaliz Flores

Moffitt	Role	Ponce	Role
W. Douglas Cress, PhD	Co-Leader	José A. Oliveras, MD	Co-Leader / Data Concierge
Annelise Glode	Program Coordinator	Enidsa Borrero, RN, BSN	Research Nurse
Edna Gordián, MS	Data Concierge	Moraima Oquendo, BS	Program Coordinator
Sepideh Mehravaran, MD	Pathologist	Zindie Rodriguez, MD	Biorepository Technician
Ed Seijo, MS	Staff Scientist	Idelmis Torres, MPH, DrPH	Data Abstractor