The Xarxa de Bancs de Tumors de Catalunya (XBTC) is made up of tumour banks at eleven Catalan hospitals with the mission of making a large collection of samples of all sorts of pathologies available to the scientific community for biomedical research. The XBTC currently has over 3 million tumour tissues and specimens available.
The XBTC was established in 2007 as an initiative of the of the Government of Catalonia Oncology Plan, Catalan Institute of Oncology (ICO) and several hospitals.
The network is structured with nodes located in each hospital and is currently coordinated by the node at Hospital Clinic-FCRB-IDIBAPS Barcelona.
The XBTC tumour banks work with Pathological Anatomy Services at the hospitals to standardise processing and storage protocols for the samples and ensure the associated data is processed according to current quality and ethics/legal criteria.
If you are a researcher
at a public entity or in the biomedical and health industry, in Catalonia or abroad, you can contact the XBTC to get blood and tissue samples of great quality, diversity and integrity.
If you want to collaborate by donating
tumour samples and helping future patients benefit from advances in research, visit the “What we do” and “How can I participate?” sections.