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Why The INSIGHT Biobank Matters · The Eye Believe Podcast

0:03
hey everybody
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welcome back to the Eye Believe Podcast
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I'm so glad you guys could join us today
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and we're bringing back one of our most popular guests
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from the beginning of when I started doing the podcast
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this is Dr. Justin Moser
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a lot of you guys have uh
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showed up in his clinic and said uh
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this is this is Danet's doctor right
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um so
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we are so glad
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that he's willing to be a guest on the podcast
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and just for his expertise
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and his continued research in
0:25
in the field of ocular melanoma
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um but
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he's a medical oncologist
0:29
at the Honor Health Research Institute in Arizona
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and today
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we're going to be chatting about the Insight Biobank
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um so I don't really know a whole lot about this
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so Justin
0:39
do you want to give us a little bit of a rundown
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like what is the Biobank
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and why do we feel like it's super important right now
0:44
yeah absolutely
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so first of all
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thanks for the introduction and thanks for having me
0:48
um so a biobank
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to start is really an area
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or it's a process where we collect biospecimens
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so that could be samples from patients
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so that could be blood tissue
0:59
you know vitreal fluid from the eye
1:01
really anything and the goal of the
1:03
of a biobank is to collect tissue from enough patients
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that we can collectively
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look and understand the disease
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these are really important for rare tumors
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like uveal melanoma because really
1:14
to understand how a cancer works
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you typically need a lot of samples sometimes
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you know hundreds
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sometimes if not thousands of samples
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and when you have a disease
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that's as rare as uveal melanoma
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we need to to get the number of samples needed
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to truly understand it and therefore
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truly treat it
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we need to collectively get samples as a big group
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because no one institution
1:36
can ever collect enough samples themselves
1:39
I feel like that totally makes sense
1:40
and I I feel like this is something that
1:42
even from the time that I was originally diagnosed
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almost six years ago
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that I've heard kind of noise in the community about
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like oh
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like we need to bank tissue
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we need to be able to research like
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and I think I had like a
1:53
you know the Castle bio or the Castle biopsy was
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was the the decision next for uveal melanoma
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and I I remember asking or like
2:00
learning about how like
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that sample that little teeny
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tiny little like
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needle biopsy that they do
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that they store an extra bit of that sample
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and I was like oh well
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like what can we do with that
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the biobank sounds like that would be something
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you know that
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that it could be used in um
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or you know
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not necessarily that sample specifically
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but just you know
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when there are extra samples from a biopsy
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whether it's from the eye or somewhere else
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um that
2:22
that would be helpful so like
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where where was kind of the
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the brainchild and like
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the vision for creating the Insight Biobank
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specifically yeah
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I think the cool
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unique thing about the Insight Biobank is
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it's really driven by A Cure In Sight
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it was really a patient driven thing
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and a couple years ago A Cure In Sight led an effort of
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you know trying to get a bunch of institutions together
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to create a biobank and one of the barriers we had
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which is one of the barriers we have
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with all institutional biobanks
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is getting if institutions are involved
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then it's hard to get agreements
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on how the tissue can be used
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who owns the tissue who makes the deciding factors
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and so A Cure In Sight really led by Melody
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the president you know
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spent a long time
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trying to figure out how to get around this
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and she's really the brainchild
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and the person who got this up and running
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where
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the Insight Biobank is really a patient driven biobank
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so instead of institutions coming to you and saying um
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you as a patient saying you're gonna get a procedure
3:22
can we take extra tissue
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it's really A Cure In Sight messaging to the patients
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and the patients going to their providers saying
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I want to contribute extra tissue to this
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and then you know
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kits are sent to the patient or to their surgeon
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to their interventional radiologist
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and it goes to the patient
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run biobank to make sure that it is patient run
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you know it is governed by a group of individuals
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including a couple of medical oncologists like myself
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a couple of ocular oncologists
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we have pathologists we have patient advocates
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and we have people from A Cure In Sight
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to make sure that we're allowing
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you know
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the samples to be used to push the science forward
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but also in a responsible way
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if patients are gonna donate tissue
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and donate their time to contribute to the biobank
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we wanna make sure one
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that we can actually get the tissue out
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to people who want it and have a good idea
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but we're also only using that tissue
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for stuff that's gonna move the field forward
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yeah that makes sense
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like we wanna
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we wanna make sure it's used judiciously
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ha ha um
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so alright
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so a biobank like you said it
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it exists to help kind of
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try to answer some of these research questions
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in fields that are more rare
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uveal melanoma we know
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has been notoriously difficult to get
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like large scale movement forward
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and obviously in the last five or so years
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we've seen some really good jumps in research
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in clinical trials but
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what research questions have still kind of
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continued to be difficult or hard to answer
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without a resource like this biobank
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yeah a lot of it comes down to just
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what is the biology of uveal melanoma
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right we know that 96% or so
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of uveal melanomas are driven by mutations in GNAQ
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or GNA11 um
5:06
but what that actually changes
5:08
and what downstream proteins and signaling
5:11
you know that actually are
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are subsequent to that that actually drive the cancer
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we don't fully understand
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and really to design a drug to treat a cancer
5:22
you have to intimately know the biology of that cancer
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we need to know what proteins
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what DNA what RNA
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what are the essential drivers
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that may be upstream or downstream
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of the GNAQ or 11 mutation
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that are potent and selective enough
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that if we turn it off or target it
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it'll shut down the entire system
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and that's where um
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you know having this tissue can be really helpful
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now there's other ways we can do this
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like mouse studies and using patient derived cell lines
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however patient derived cell lines are not always 100%
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um
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uh they can change and evolve over time
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so doing sequencing on a cell line
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that's been around for 10 years
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may give you some different information
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than doing sequencing from a patient biopsy
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those are very different things
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and then you know
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in mouse models sometimes
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we can probe biology and change stuff here and there
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but mice are not humans and
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although they're tremendously helpful
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to helping us understand biology
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and moving cancer science forward
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they also have their limitations
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and so
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the best way to design new cancer drugs for patients
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is to understand the biology of patients
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and to do that we need samples from patients
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yeah that makes sense
6:35
um and I
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I know like
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as a patient you know
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some of the the things that people in the community
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especially when you are in the
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you know in the metastatic world
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some of those big questions that come around is like
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well like
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I'm say like a
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supposed to have been a lower risk patient
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right like
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and I'm I'm not speaking of myself
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I'm just hypothetically um
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talking about some patients who were told
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oh yeah
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your biopsy from your eye
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looked like you were gonna be lower risk
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and then boom seven
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eight years later they're metastatic
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and it's like whoa
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like I wasn't expecting that
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so hopefully some you know
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some of the research that
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that comes around and that we can
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kind of gather all these samples in the biobank
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hopefully we're able to understand better why
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why does that happen um
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exactly and that's some of the things
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you know we've already started to see that a little bit
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but there's still a long way to go right
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we know
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SF3B1 mutations typically are lower risk
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but they also make you higher risk
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for having late relapses 7
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8 years if not 14 years down the road
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like you mentioned and so initially
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when we understood uveal melanoma
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we thought it was just low risk
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high risk now we know it's low risk
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high risk with or without prame
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we know low risk with SF3B1
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SF3B1 is different than not
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and so
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it's using these tissues to develop more information
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to better refine all the tools
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and treatments that we have
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yeah absolutely
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um what
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I mean just like hypothetically
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like where
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would you love to see the research from the biobank
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kind of influence
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um like
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the development of clinical trials or like
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the use of treatments in the patient
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like kind of journey of metastatic disease specifically
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yeah
8:12
I think there's many ways we could utilize a biobank
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you know
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one of the things we're seeing in oncology right now
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is an explosion of drug
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antibody conjugates and t cell engagers
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and what these things are
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is there molecules that bind to a protein
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on the surface of a cancer cell
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and on the back
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so one part of the molecule binds the cancer cell
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the other part has a payload
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which is usually a chemotherapy
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or sometimes an immunotherapy
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or sometimes a targeted therapy
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so it's a way of selectively delivering cancer therapy
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straight to tumors
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but you do you have to know
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what protein is expressed on that tumor
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and we know this very well in stuff like breast cancer
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where we see HER2 activation all the time
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um and
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you know there's a lot of these coming out
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and so one thing we could do with the biobank is
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if we collect enough tissue
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we could actually look to see
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do uveal melanomas express any of these targets
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that these drug
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antibody conjugates are targeting right now
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and can we repurpose
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and pull some of those drugs from development
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into other cancers into uveal melanoma as well
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the other thing we can do is really just try to
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try to find new targets ourselves
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you know
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the technology for understanding biology is exploding
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right now it used to be that we could test for
9:27
you know we could sequence DNA
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then we could sequence RNA
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then we could sequence whole exome
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a whole genome DNA and now we can sequence
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you know link RNA
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and micro array and proteomics and phosphoproteomics
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and all of these things you know
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can could tell us the story
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and putting them all together may be more important
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because we always like to think that
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if you have a mutation in DNA
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that cut is transcribed into RNA
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which is transcribed into a protein
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but really it's more complex than that
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you can get DNA going to RNA
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but something could knock it down
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and prevent that RNA from becoming a protein
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you could make it a protein
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but then you could get degradation of that protein
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or phosphorylation
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or some other modification that shuts it down
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and so really
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using samples to kind of look at the complete biology
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from start to finish
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is what's most likely to give us the insight
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of how to treat this disease
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now that's very hard to
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do you need very good biostatisticians
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very good data scientists
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and very good um
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sequencing and multiplexing technologies
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but those are coming
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we're starting to see those enter the clinic
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and be more and more useful
11:07
yeah I mean
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it all sounds like there's
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there's so many pieces of the science
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that I definitely don't think that I'm like
11:13
fully grasping but I love what you said about how it
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the idea is to help tell the story right
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we're trying to fill in the gaps exactly
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okay so
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um I wanna chat a little bit about
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like we have
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at A Cure In Sight
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if you guys have been around
11:30
you know we have a couple of registries
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or I guess we have a registry
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and then we have the Biobank
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and I wanna I wanna see if we can kind of
11:37
differentiate between the two
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and just kind of explain why both are important
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um because we do have the Insight Registry
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but this is the Insight Biobank
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so why do you think like
11:47
as a as a clinician
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as a researcher yourself
11:49
why do you think that it's important
11:51
to have both of these
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we've got the Natural History Registry plus a biobank
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yeah it's important
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because they help us answer different questions
11:59
and the biggest power comes from linking the two
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so
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having the registry that allows us to answer questions
12:04
like is there clustering in families of uveal melanoma
12:08
and if that's the case is it genetic
12:10
is it environmental it helps to tell us
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you know is there
12:14
or it helps us to identify
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is there a subgroup of patients who are quote
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low risk like you mentioned
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but um
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still end up getting metastatic disease or vice versa
12:23
people who are high risk and those who don't
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and that really so
12:26
the registry helps us answer those type of questions
12:30
on a population patient level
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the Biobank really helps us answer the questions
12:35
on the molecular biology level
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now if we compare the two and say
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you know learn about the biology of someone's tumor
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and then link it to the registry and say
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you know
12:46
this person was actually one of the high risk people
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that never actually developed metastatic disease
12:52
we can then try looking and saying
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what
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in their biology is unique compared to those who did
12:58
and that can provide valuable insights into what can we
13:01
how can we potentially
13:02
try manipulating other people's tumors
13:04
to turn them from high risk metastasis
13:07
to low risk metastasis so they're both very important
13:10
cause they answer both questions
13:12
or they answer separate questions
13:13
but they're merging them together
13:15
brings us the most power and ability
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to really
13:18
try to make an impact in treating uveal melanoma
13:23
wow no
13:24
that's like I mean I
13:25
I think that is kind of a
13:28
just like the most crazy part of the
13:30
the research world that I think exists
13:32
is this idea that we're trying to
13:34
to piece together all the puzzle
13:36
and not just like
13:37
using like
13:37
one piece of it like
13:38
we gotta we gotta pull in the natural history
13:40
we gotta talk about
13:42
what is the patient actually experiencing
13:44
even though you know
13:45
maybe statistically
13:46
they were supposed to behave a certain way
13:48
um so as we're like
13:51
looking into the future like
13:52
the Biobank has only been around for a short time
13:55
um
13:56
like what do you feel like
13:58
success looks like for the Insight Biobank 5
14:00
10 years from now
14:02
yeah you're right
14:03
it's really been around just a short time
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I think
14:05
we really only started collecting a couple months ago
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and I think you know
14:09
success is gonna come in waves
14:10
obviously to answer the scientific
14:12
or to start asking the scientific questions
14:15
we need the tissue to look at
14:16
so step one is
14:17
really getting the messaging out about the biobanks
14:20
and hope that patients you know
14:21
are are willing to talk to their surgeon
14:25
their um
14:26
interventional radiologist who's doing the biopsy
14:28
wherever it is in the US say hey
14:30
I would like to donate my samples
14:32
you know it's a very easy process
14:34
the biobank will ship samples to them
14:36
they just simply ship it back
14:37
it's very easy um
14:39
but really I think the near term success
14:41
is getting the message out
14:42
and starting to get samples collected
14:44
and then it's on us as the biobank
14:46
to start engaging with researchers
14:48
and letting them know
14:49
this is the resource that the patients have developed
14:52
and contributed and this is open in public
14:55
so how can we answer the best questions
14:57
and then
14:58
getting the researchers to know this is available
15:01
so they can start designing those questions
15:03
and then start doing our first studies
15:05
the other thing that we're trying to do
15:07
is partner with researchers
15:09
who've already discovered something
15:11
and maybe have an idea but need more samples
15:13
so one of our initial collaborations
15:15
was working with Doctor Hawk
15:17
who needed some extra samples
15:19
and so we put out a blast saying hey
15:20
do you have tissue that can do this
15:23
are are you someone who
15:24
you know progressed on this drug
15:25
and do you have samples that you're willing to share
15:28
and I think that can be really powerful too
15:30
because that just speeds it up
15:32
you know if a researcher has an idea
15:34
or a hit on something
15:35
that they think could be used to treat uveal melanoma
15:39
they can either collect the samples themselves
15:41
which could take a couple years
15:42
but if we can partner with them and speed it up
15:44
that's just gonna get new treatments
15:46
new science to patients quicker
15:48
and that's really our goal
15:49
getting stuff to patients quicker
15:51
so I think
15:52
one of the challenging things that patients face
15:54
especially when we're diagnosed
15:56
is realizing just how rare ocular melanoma is
15:59
and then you know
16:00
even in the metastatic world
16:01
like seeing how challenging it can be
16:03
to treat that can be really discouraging
16:05
um and I think that a lot of patients sometimes wonder
16:08
like you know
16:09
can I actually make a difference right
16:10
I'm just one person um
16:12
could my tissue really make a difference
16:13
so I love like
16:14
hearing what you said about how
16:16
if a researcher has a specific question
16:18
that they can get answered
16:19
like we can um
16:21
like the biobank can kind of put out a call right
16:24
and say like
16:24
we need tissue for this reason
16:26
and then I I guess
16:27
as a patient like
16:28
that just makes me feel like okay
16:30
like it's not just going to sit in the Biobank
16:32
like it has a direction right
16:34
it has a specific direction of what it's going to do
16:36
and who's gonna use it and why
16:38
um and I think that just knowing that the
16:41
the whole purpose of the biobank is to drive
16:45
you know research in that kind of a way
16:47
like actionable research
16:48
things that are gonna move the needle forward
16:51
that makes a really big difference for like
16:52
why would I want to donate my sample
16:54
because I think
16:55
I think that some of it probably comes down to like
16:58
a lack of understanding of how this works and be
17:00
and maybe even like you said
17:01
being nervous to like
17:02
ask the the doctor who's doing the biopsy hey
17:05
I'd like an extra sample um
17:07
so I guess for those people who are like
17:10
I'm not really sure
17:10
how to go about this process
17:11
can we walk them through like
17:13
say I'm
17:14
I mean I
17:14
let's let's use me as an example
17:16
like say
17:16
I've got I've got a sample that I think that we could
17:19
we're gonna biopsy and um
17:22
I wanna make sure that some of that tissue
17:24
ends up in the Biobank not just say
17:26
in like
17:27
the hospital stores um
17:29
what's the process like for me
17:31
yeah so if a patient's interested
17:33
you know they can go to the Insight Biobank website
17:35
and they can put in their information and request it
17:37
then what happens is there's a consent where virtually
17:41
someone from the biobank will walk you through
17:43
and have you sign an electronic consent about um
17:46
you know storing the tissue
17:47
and that's a great time if you have any questions like
17:50
you know what is
17:51
can the tissue be used for
17:52
can it come back to me can they know it's me
17:54
all of those questions and any other concerns you have
17:57
that's the perfect time to answer that
17:59
and that consent visit
18:01
go to that consent with your questions
18:02
you can always say actually
18:03
I don't want to participate
18:05
but the only way to get those questions answered
18:07
is to go to the consent visit
18:08
ask the questions and get it done
18:11
once you sign the consent form
18:13
then um
18:14
you can let you can either talk to your surgeon
18:16
or the interventional radiologist yourselves
18:18
otherwise
18:18
the Biobank team can try reaching out to their clinic
18:21
and then they'll either send all the necessary
18:24
you know sample collection tools
18:26
vials to the clinic or to you
18:29
and then all you need to do is make sure
18:31
when you go in for your surgery or biopsy
18:33
that the team performing the biopsy has that tissue
18:36
they put the tissue in there
18:37
it comes in with a FedEx label
18:39
it's shipped back um
18:41
usually the institution ships it
18:42
maybe they ask you to ship it
18:44
but you drop it off it's a prepaid shipping label
18:46
it goes back to the lab and it's all done
18:48
and so um
18:49
it is very easy a lot of times in the consent what
18:52
which we ask what
18:54
or the thing that we ask our interventionalist to do
18:56
is to collect as much tissue as they feel is safe
19:00
without increasing the risk
19:01
so a lot of times when you do a biopsy
19:03
we do two or three cores
19:05
sometimes four
19:06
sometimes we need to biopsy the lesions large enough
19:09
and it's in an area
19:10
where you could safely do eight cores
19:11
they just don't always need that
19:13
but what we tell people is collect up collect
19:16
we ideally would like this much or up to
19:20
whatever you feel
19:21
doesn't increase the risk of the biopsy
19:22
for the patient
19:23
cause we never want to increase the risk
19:25
and we let them determine that
19:26
and then we take whatever they feel is safe
19:31
so I know this is gonna come up
19:32
we have tons of people who
19:34
you know live in the world of like
19:36
cancer and we are trying to understand like okay
19:39
does having a biopsy
19:40
somehow increase my risk for spread
19:42
and I feel like you and I've had this conversation
19:44
specifically um
19:46
a number of times
19:47
but can you just kind of clarify again
19:49
like that myth around like
19:51
kind of the what is it
19:52
it's like the that if you have a needle point biopsy
19:55
that the path of the needle pulling out is gonna like
19:57
somehow be a path of spread
19:59
can you
19:59
can you help clarify what we know about uveal's behavior
20:21
yeah so there is a couple of cancers
20:23
it's very rare
20:23
where we know that if you biopsy something
20:25
it can grow along the needle track
20:27
that is not uveal melanoma and actually
20:29
all of the data we have from uveal melanoma suggests that
20:34
for patients who have get
20:36
will develop metastatic disease
20:38
that disease has probably already spread
20:40
and is remaining dormant in the body
20:42
even before we find the tumor in the eye
20:45
and that's why treating the tumor in the eye
20:47
may or may not affect outcomes of metastasis
20:50
and so you know
20:52
if the cancer spreads it's probably already done
20:54
so it's probably just doing so in a single cell level
20:57
hanging out and hiding to see something on a pet scan
21:00
typically you need a billion cells in one spot
21:02
so it takes a while for the cancer to grow that much
21:05
so
21:06
doing a biopsy
21:07
absolutely does not increase the risk of cancer spread
21:11
or growth or anything like that
21:12
in patients with uveal melanoma
21:15
okay so then when you say like
21:17
get the amount of biopsy tissue that's safe to do
21:20
like that's more
21:21
is that more like
21:21
from a physical comfort level of the patient
21:23
of just making sure it's not too invasive of a biopsy
21:26
um
21:27
I guess I'm just trying to make sure that I understand
21:29
and help clarify for those of our people listening
21:32
yeah exactly
21:33
so it's a thing for the patient or the
21:35
also the proceduralist so sometimes
21:36
you know there's a lesion that's in a tight spot
21:39
they may only be able to get one core
21:40
then we don't collect for the biobank
21:41
if they feel like it's gonna be risky for just one
21:44
then we don't take more um
21:46
but sometimes it's you know
21:47
some people just have a spot on the skin
21:49
and you could either just take a part of the thing
21:51
or take it all off and it's really no different
21:54
and that's an example where we may get more tissue
21:56
because it is safe just to take
21:58
you know a larger lesion of the skin
22:00
versus just a smaller component of that
22:03
okay so
22:04
I wanna shift a little bit
22:05
away from the metastatic side of things
22:07
cause obviously we've got metastatic disease
22:09
biopsies that can happen for various different reasons
22:12
um whether it's to confirm metastatic diagnosis
22:14
or to join a clinical trial
22:16
I know is another setting where you might need um
22:19
a fresh biopsy like
22:20
within a certain amount of time
22:21
um so like
22:22
you know various different opportunities
22:24
throughout the metastatic journey
22:25
to obtain biopsies and to kind of
22:27
volunteer that tissue to go into the Insight Biobank
22:30
but if we go back to the beginning of initial diagnosis
22:33
how do you how do you like
22:35
see this working from like
22:38
an ocular oncology and like the
22:39
the original primary diagnosis point
22:42
cause we've got needle point biopsies for like
22:44
some tumors and then we have like
22:46
enucleation obviously
22:47
for others um
22:49
proton beam therapy
22:50
which is a totally different treatment for
22:51
you know other parts of the eye
22:53
um so yeah
22:54
how how can we kind of see this working
22:56
with the primary tumor
22:58
yeah there's a couple things we could do
23:00
with the primary tumor
23:00
but the primary tumor is a little more challenging
23:02
so right now we're starting with metastatic
23:04
and we'll roll in the primary tumors in the future
23:07
with the biobank with the primary tumor
23:09
a lot of times if you're getting
23:10
you know proton or plaque brachytherapy
23:13
we just do a fine needle biopsy
23:15
which really only gets you a couple of cells
23:17
to do kind of deep sequencing of DNA
23:20
RNA or protein
23:22
usually the more you put in
23:23
the more accurate it is so
23:24
it's hard to ask broad questions on targeted biopsy
23:28
such as that which is why the Castle test is
23:30
you know an RNA test that only looks at
23:32
I think up to 15 genes
23:34
if that because with DNA and RNA
23:38
you know you can ask if you
23:40
if you are only looking at a couple of things
23:42
you don't need much tissue
23:43
the more things you look at
23:44
the more you do so with a biopsy
23:46
you can ask very specific questions
23:48
but not broad questions
23:50
now um
23:52
the we are
23:53
there is emerging data that vitreal fluid biopsy
23:55
the fluid within the eye which is safe to take
23:58
may contain some of the same DNA
24:01
protein and cells as a uveal melanoma biopsy
24:03
and that's a situation where we may be able to get more
24:05
and there's you know
24:06
I think UCSF
24:07
and Stanford are doing a lot of research in this space
24:10
and so in the future the Biobank may expand into that
24:13
since we may be able to get fluid where we could um
24:16
be more useful on a kind of bigger question answer
24:20
and then for enucleation
24:22
um you would think if you remove the tumor
24:24
it would be very easy to send it to the biobank
24:26
the problem is these are still pretty small right
24:28
even a large tumor is 2 centimeters
24:31
and when we do a surgery
24:34
like enucleation where margins are very important
24:36
we need to make sure we got all the margins
24:38
that's not in the nerve
24:40
it's hard to take a portion out of the enucleation
24:43
to send it to pathology especially
24:46
if we think that could affect their determination of
24:49
did they get it all or not
24:51
because again
24:51
the number one thing is
24:53
we don't interfere with patient care
24:55
and so we can't ask that
24:56
we can't prevent pathology from asking that question
24:59
so that is a little more nuance
25:00
but some patients you can get that
25:03
no that's
25:04
I mean I'm glad that we talked about that
25:05
because
25:06
I definitely believe that this will be a question
25:08
especially you know
25:09
as we're able to move to any level of the biobank
25:11
taking tissue from a primary tumor
25:13
like that's definitely gonna come up because like
25:16
in my head I'm thinking like
25:17
I've seen the picture of my eye
25:19
from when my doctor enucleated it
25:21
she showed it to me looks like a little pomegranate
25:23
my head says well
25:24
I can't I just donate that eye to science
25:26
but I also know that it was sliced through
25:29
like for multiple different slides
25:31
because they had to verify that it didn't
25:33
you know extend beyond the actual eyeball globe and
25:37
you know kind of that
25:38
that was a huge influencing
25:40
I guess bit of the biopsy for my actual treatment plan
25:44
so like you said
25:45
like so important
25:45
that it doesn't interfere
25:47
with the treatment of the patient
25:49
um I have like
25:50
one more question
25:51
and I guess this is kind of more around
25:53
like the clinical trial space
25:54
um
25:56
if someone's getting a biopsy for a clinical trial
25:58
can they also like
26:00
as long as it's safe to do so
26:01
ask for additional samples to be sent into the biobank
26:05
like for a biopsy of a metastatic tumor
26:09
yeah you absolutely can still ask
26:11
it comes down to what is safe to collect
26:12
so if there you know
26:14
sometimes when we do a biopsy for research
26:16
we need a biopsy for pathology
26:18
as well cause we're sending
26:19
you know circulating tumor DNA
26:20
and we need tissue for that
26:22
then we need to collect tissue for the study
26:23
and then the biobank would come third
26:25
cause we would never interfere with the patient care
26:27
and the first two or more patient care
26:29
and so it might be that um
26:31
for smaller lesions they can't get enough safely
26:34
it could be that it's a large lesion
26:35
they absolutely can
26:36
but it's absolutely a question that can be asked yep
26:40
okay awesome
26:41
well I feel like this has been super enlightening um
26:44
what do you hope that ocular melanoma patients today
26:46
understand about the future
26:47
because of a resource like the Insight Biobank
26:51
yeah the goal of a biobank like this
26:54
is to really help investigators
26:56
find better ways to treat the cancer in the future
26:59
you know and so we're really hoping that
27:02
you know we can use this
27:03
to develop new therapies for future patients
27:06
I think the thing that you know
27:09
I think one of the unique things
27:10
about the uveal melanoma patient population
27:12
which is one of the reasons
27:13
I love working with this group
27:15
and A Cure In Sight
27:16
is just how much drive and support there are
27:20
from the patients to partner and cure this disease
27:22
and I think that's super unique
27:24
and I also think it's incredibly important
27:26
when it comes to rare cancer
27:28
no one person's gonna cure this disease
27:30
no matter how great that one person is
27:32
it's going to take a team
27:33
and I don't I'm not aware of any other disease
27:37
where the patients
27:38
and the advocacy groups are such strong partners
27:40
or members of the team as uveal melanoma
27:42
so I think a lot of it is
27:44
just keep doing what you guys are doing
27:46
cause you guys are already leading the field
27:49
well thank you so much
27:50
Doctor Moser um
27:51
we can't thank you enough for just all of the
27:53
the continued research that you're doing
27:55
and for the treatment of the patients that you have
27:57
on the west side of the United States
28:00
and
28:01
we're just really grateful that you're willing to be
28:04
just be a part of the team with all of us
28:06
and I love what you said about that
28:08
and just to kind of close out
28:10
I want to also make sure that we thank our sponsors
28:12
thanks to our listeners and if you haven't yet
28:14
make sure that you subscribe
28:15
hit that little button on YouTube
28:17
or on your podcast platform
28:19
and share this with some friends
28:20
um like Doctor Moser said
28:22
the best way
28:22
that we can get the Biobank to move forward
28:24
is to have more samples
28:25
so the more people who know about it
28:26
the better um
28:28
we'll also put the link to the Biobank
28:30
in the show notes so that you guys have access to that
28:33
and you can share that with friends
28:35
um and
28:35
you know just
28:36
let's just spread the word
28:37
because
28:37
that's how we're gonna help the needle move forward
28:39
on research so thanks again
28:41
Doctor Moser
28:42
thanks for having me