A facility to store human tissue samples for cancer research is being officially launched in south Auckland on Wednesday.
The Middlemore Tissue Bank has been set up to collect tumours and other types of tissue for the benefit of cancer researchers.
It has so far collected 600 samples from 34 donors, all Middlemore Hospital patients suffering cancers of the blood.
It has capacity for about 480,000 samples.
The tissue bank is the first of its kind in the North Island. A facility is already operating in Christchurch.
It hopes to have 300 donors from throughout Auckland by the end of the year.
