April, 9 1999

I would appreciate any help in obtaining samples (tissue, genomic dna, etc) from bladder cancer patients who exhibit h-ras mutations in either exon 1 or 2. Our lab is developing a novel assay to detect mutations in H-ras from bladder cancer patients. Through IRB at Mayo we will be running a number of in-house samples to this end. However, it is questionable whether any of these samples will be known positives for H-ras beforehand, and it would be a great help in the development process of having such samples to serve as positive controls. Of course, we'll most likely have to accumulate these controls by analyzing our material using conventional methods of detection.
I thought is would shorten the process if I could acquire some genomic dna which was already known to be positive for H-ras mutations.