The lost treasure of the Tumour Reference Collection

In 2008 funding was granted by the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) to digitise Imperial Cancer Research Funded Tumour Reference Collection (TRC). This is a historic collection of tissue blocks and slides which were donated to Professor A R Currie and Professor R A Willis who created the collection in 1960 as part of the Imperial Cancer Research Fund. The TRC consist of samples sent from all over the world and is recognised as one of the foremost collections of its kind and houses some very rare cases. The Imperial Cancer Research Fund annual report from 1971 mentions the collection in depth emphasising how valuable a resource it is. Professor Willis brought the collection with him to Leeds where he continued adding to it while he was Chair of Pathology.

With the guidance of a colleague the TRC collection was found in storage where it had been for some years due to the pathology department being restructured several times. After looking through a number of filing cabinets and boxes I found the glass slides and associated fixed tissue blocks from the collection. Further digging through old tea chests unearthed more small boxes of tissues blocks and slides from the collection. Each box contained the blocks, slides or both for each case in the collection all labelled in copperplate writing.

The combination of an old building and old pipes had resulted in a few bursts over the years and the two tea chests had obviously been caught in the flood waters which resulted in some of the boxes of tissue blocks and slides being water damaged. While sifting through the paper and other packing materials in the chests I realised that in among the paper packing there was also paintings and drawings of tissues, resection specimens and microscope slides as viewed down a microscope. I managed to sort out a number of these illustrations and save them but sadly a large number had been damaged beyond recognition by the water.

The pictures some of which are in colour are both fantastic reproductions of the subject matter but also amazing works of art in their own right and a credit to the artist E M Wright who has signed them. They are from the 20’s and 30’s before we photographed specimens and slides with the colours as vivid today as they were when originally painted and are a true reproduction of the colours of the subjects. The attention to detail is such that identification of the subjects is easily made by experts from both the colour and monochrome images.

These images are part of the Tumour Reference Collection which was digitised as part of the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) project conducted by the Section of Pathology and Tumour Biology, Leeds Institute of Cancer and Pathology, University of Leeds.