Who can participate?

Women and men who have been diagnosed with breast cancer and who are undergoing an operation to remove the cancer are invited to become donors to the Australian Breast Cancer Tissue Bank. It is essential to have biospecimens from normal donors to use as controls for breast cancer research studies. Therefore, we also recruit normal donors who are undergoing breast reduction surgery. Because information and materials stored in the Bank are collected for future research, the projects for which your specimens may be used are not currently known.

To protect your privacy, only authorised biobank personnel will have access to your personal information. When materials or information are released to researchers they will be labelled with a unique number only, and researchers will not be able to find out who you are.

If you decide to donate to the bank and later change your mind, just let us know. Your information and materials can be removed from the bank if you wish, or if you prefer, materials already collected can be retained in a fully de-identified form. It will not be possible to remove materials from the Bank that have already been used for research.