What we do

The Macquarie University Cancer Biobank is unique in the breadth of its activity and the innovative research it will promote.

It will include all types of cancer patients undergoing treatment in Macquarie University Hospital and other parts of MQ Health. These cancers include breast, colorectal, prostate, brain, liver, gastrointestinal, bladder and other cancers.

The Macquarie University Cancer Biobank will collect fresh biofluids and store fresh and paraffin-embedded tissue specimens, it will maintain longitudinal specimens collected during a patient’s treatment journey and it will store viable tumour and immune cell populations.

This biobank will enable research that is focused in critical unmet clinical needs, that are common to all cancers – new effective treatments, novel drug targets, predictive and prognostic markers, modelling cancer responses and monitoring patient outcomes in real-time. Importantly, it provides the resources (static and viable models) to support clinical care with translational research. This is an important part of MQ Health's mission of 'Heal. Learn. Discover.'