The background:
Patient identity is stripped from the tumor/tissue they donate for research
This process makes research easier...but it also decreases the quality of data and prevents direct translation of research into clinical care.
This is a major problem
for the era of precision medicine.
Most research considers patients “non-human subjects”
When de-identified tissue is used for research, patients have no way to learn what happens, regardless of the potential medical, personal or monetary value.