The Komen Tissue Bank holds collection events in areas of the United States that have higher minority populations than our home state.
Why? Some forms of breast cancer are more prevalent in people of certain races and/or ethnicities. This means researchers need to have access to racially diverse tissue to use in their studies.
Connect donors in your community with KTB
How you can help
If you are a:
- Researcher or principal investigator affiliated with a pharmaceutical organization or academic medical institution;
- Breast oncologist, surgeon, epidemiologist or radiologist affiliated with an academic medical institution;
- Patient advocate;
- Health- and minority-focused community organizer or opinion leader.
or have connections to any of the above, please review our event resources below, and then contact our COO, Jill Henry at jihenry@iu.edu, to arrange a conversation about hosting a collection in your area.
We are looking forward to working with you!
- Challenges of hosting a collection event in your city
- KTB executive summary guide to hosting a tissue collection event
- KTB needs from local affiliates and medical partners
- KTB quick history
- List of event volunteers (numbers and types)
- List of needed volunteers
- Out-of-town event “background language”
- Sample event floor plan/layout
It’s such a great feeling being a part of something so much bigger than myself. If this donation helps to find a cure, how great would that be? I am so happy to be here to help. Thank you so much for offering this chance.
M — Tissue Donor
KTB collection events: A look inside
Videos for diverse communities:
- Black tissue donors: Hear Black individuals talk about their decisions to donate, and why it’s so important to protect the legacy they are leaving their families.
- Asian tissue donors (English language): Find out from physicians and real donors why it is so important for people of Asian descent to donate tissue.
- Hispanic tissue donors (en Espanol). Entérate a través de médicos y donantes por qué es tan importante que las Latinos donen tejido mamario. Find out from doctors and donors why it is so important for personas de origen latino to donate breast tissue.
About the Susan G. Komen Tissue Bank
The Komen Tissue Bank is the only repository in the world for normal breast tissue and matched serum, plasma, and DNA. We are transforming breast cancer research by offering normal, high-quality, richly annotated tissue samples to scientists worldwide.
