The foundation of personalized medicine is the establishment of biobanks and their standardization.

The present review outlines the current information available about biobanks including: summarizing the main ethical issues encountered when integrating patient samples in research projects; emphasizing the importance of biobanks as the basis for any personalized medicine therapies in cancer with a particular focus for oral cancer, through the use of biomarkers; and providing examples of biobanks that use anonymous sample collection and labelling methodologies to help alleviate the problems of privacy, informed consent, data security as well as public trust.

Inhibition of tumor necrosis factor alpha using RNA interference in oral squamous cell carcinoma.

PURPOSE: Oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) is a disease with increased prevalence and unfavorable prognosis calling for development of novel therapeutic strategies. Tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α) is a pro-inflammatory cytokine implicated in the development and progression of cancer. The present study was designed to assess the impact of TNF-α specific inhibition using small interference RNA (siRNA) in SSC-4 cells, a representative model for OSCC. METHODS: The present study evaluated the effect of TNF-α inhibition using siRNA as inhibitory mechanism on SCC-4 cells. The study focused on the effect of TNF-α inhibition on apoptosis, autophagy and invasion in parallel with a panel of 20 genes involved in apoptosis and angiogenesis. RESULTS: TNF-α inhibition was related with reduction of cell viability, activation of apoptosis and autophagy in parallel with the inhibition of migration in SCC-4 cells. Evaluating the impact on gene expression levels, inhibition of FASL-FADD, NFκB, SEMA 3C, TNF-α, TGFB1, VEGFA, along with activation of PDGFB and SEMA 3D was observed. Our study confirms the important role of TNF-α and sustains that it might be a therapeutic target in OSCC. CONCLUSIONS: TNF-α is a key mediator of the immune system, with important role in OSCC tumorigenesis, and might be considered as a therapeutic target using siRNA technology, particularly for those risk cases having FASL/FADD overexpressed.