{"entity":{"id":"idea-bio2-rapid-autopsy-commons","kind":"idea","name":"A global rapid tissue donation network for metastatic disease","aka":[],"tldr":"Almost all cancer deaths are caused by spread, yet metastatic tissue is rarely studied because rapid autopsy programmes exist at only a handful of centres. A funded 20-site network with one protocol, one consent framework and open sample access would collect donated tissue within hours of death.","summary":"Rapid autopsy programmes at a handful of centres have produced disproportionate insight into metastatic evolution and treatment resistance, but they are small, precariously funded and not interoperable. A funded 20-site network with a shared protocol, single consent framework, common data commons and open sample access would industrialise the most information-dense sample type in oncology.","asOf":"2026-09-08","links":[{"label":"Cancer Grand Challenges","url":"https://cancergrandchallenges.org"}],"tags":[],"related":["tcga-gdc","cbioportal","genie"],"cancers":[],"sections":[],"technologies":["single-cell-spatial","wes-wgs","proteomics"],"targets":[],"drugs":[],"companies":[],"institutions":[],"pathways":[],"terms":[],"trials":[],"people":["charles-swanton"],"bottlenecks":["b-metastasis-biology","b-preclinical-models","b-data-silos"],"keyPapers":[],"journals":[],"dependsOn":[],"notes":[],"hypothesis":"A shared-protocol network producing 500 multi-site metastatic donations per year yields at least ten validated metastasis-specific dependencies within five years that are absent from primary-tumour datasets.","rationale":"Large-scale primary tumour atlases transformed cancer biology because scale plus openness beat individual excellence. Metastasis has never had an equivalent: existing metastatic sequencing is mostly single-site biopsy material and lacks the paired multi-organ sampling that organotropism and resistance questions require.","test":"Fund a three-site pilot to demonstrate short warm-ischaemia protocols, harmonised consent and open data release; measure donations per year, organs per donor and external data requests served.","maturity":"early-clinical","actor":"philanthropy","cost":"large","horizonYears":5},"route":"/ideas/idea-bio2-rapid-autopsy-commons/","neighbours":{"collection":[{"id":"genie","kind":"collection","name":"AACR Project GENIE","route":"/collections/genie/"},{"id":"cbioportal","kind":"collection","name":"cBioPortal for Cancer Genomics","route":"/collections/cbioportal/"},{"id":"tcga-gdc","kind":"collection","name":"TCGA / NCI Genomic Data Commons","route":"/collections/tcga-gdc/"}],"technology":[{"id":"proteomics","kind":"technology","name":"Proteomics & phosphoproteomics","route":"/technologies/proteomics/"},{"id":"single-cell-spatial","kind":"technology","name":"Single-cell & spatial profiling","route":"/technologies/single-cell-spatial/"},{"id":"wes-wgs","kind":"technology","name":"Whole-exome & whole-genome sequencing","route":"/technologies/wes-wgs/"}],"person":[{"id":"charles-swanton","kind":"person","name":"Charles Swanton","route":"/people/charles-swanton/"}],"bottleneck":[{"id":"b-data-silos","kind":"bottleneck","name":"Data silos","route":"/bottlenecks/b-data-silos/"},{"id":"b-preclinical-models","kind":"bottleneck","name":"Lab models that fail to predict what happens in patients","route":"/bottlenecks/b-preclinical-models/"},{"id":"b-metastasis-biology","kind":"bottleneck","name":"Metastasis is understood least and studied last","route":"/bottlenecks/b-metastasis-biology/"}]}}