Cooperative Human Tissue Network

The Cooperative Human Tissue Network, known as the CHTN, was established in 1987 by the National Cancer Institute in response to rising demand for high quality biospecimens for cancer research. According to its Wikipedia article its purpose is to stimulate cooperative efforts to collect and distribute human biospecimens, and so to support basic and developmental studies in areas such as molecular biology, immunology and genetics. The article says it is not intended to be a human tissue bank: it procures tissue at the request of an investigator, with limited banking to meet specific requests and longer-term banking of rare, hard-to-obtain specimens. It is funded under a UM1 grant from the National Institutes of Health.