New SDH Tissue Testing Collaboration with NIH & UCSD
The LRG is partnering with the NIH and UCSD to create the first ever tumor biobank in the U.S. focused specifically on SDH-deficient GIST.
Did You Know? Tissue Testing FREE for GIST Patients!
The Life Raft Group is currently conducting a tissue testing initiative for GIST patients to receive FREE Next-Generation Sequencing (NGS) Testing!
The Life Raft Group Announces Collaboration with OHSU on GIST Tissue Bank
In this issue of LRG Science, we release breaking news of our newest collaboration - with OHSU on the GIST Collaborative Tissue Bank. The LRG has a unique patient registry with over 2,000 members and this collaboration is an important example of the vital role patient advocacy groups and academic institutions play in bridging the gap between researchers and motivated patient populations who want to share their clinical histories and tissue to create new treatments and better outcomes.
How to be a GIST Hero: Donating Tissue for GIST Research
For patients who have recently been diagnosed with cancer, donating a tissue sample is probably the last thing on their minds. But it’s an important consideration. Researchers often rely on donated tissue to advance [...]
GIST Collaborative Tissue Bank: A researcher’s perspective
The Life Raft Group GIST Collaborative Tissue Bank consists of a collection of tumor specimens from a large number of patients, stored at Stanford University. The advantages of having a tissue bank for a [...]
Clinical Trial Data Sharing: LRG’s Model for Collaboration
A recent report from the Institute of Medicine outlines the advantages of data sharing from clinical trials. The authors state that data sharing can lead to the discovery of new treatment modalities as well [...]
Epidemiology of GIST
Dr. Jason Sicklick An interview with Dr. Jason Sicklick In a recently published study, Jason Sicklick, MD, surgical oncologist at University of California, San Diego Health System, and his team of researchers [...]
The Role of Big Data in Curing Cancer
A recent article by Lindsey Cook on the US News and World Report blog discusses the value of big data, the repositories of health information that are becoming more commonplace in healthcare institutions and organizations. [...]
LRG patient registry: powerful tool for patients, physicians and researchers
The time it takes between the appearance of first symptoms of a rare disease and when the correct diagnosis is given, is often years if not decades instead of days or weeks like it is [...]
Tissue Bank Update – Resistant Tissue is Scarce
In recent years we have been able to gain valuable information from the data produced by tissue donations to the GIST Collaborative Tissue Bank.