Rapid Case Ascertainment (RCA)
About the core
Working as an agent of the Connecticut Tumor Registry, the Rapid Case Ascertainment (RCA) Shared Resource facilitates population-based studies of cancer for Yale Cancer Center (YCC) investigators as well as outside investigators. As the needs of YCC investigators have evolved to require more research staff support for non-therapeutic trials, RCA has broadened and expanded its scope to provide support to YCC investigators in their non-therapeutic studies as well. This includes YCC investigators who conduct projects through the Veteran’s Health Administration (VHA). This core is one of eight shared resources that supports research at Yale Cancer Center, as well as science across Yale University.
View all Yale Cancer Center Shared Resources
The RCA coordinates directly with Yale Pathology Tissue Services, or other hospital pathology labs, to obtain pathology specimens or histology services. They also manage blood and other specimen collections (i.e., stool, cerebral spinal fluid, biopsy cores) at Smilow Cancer Hospital locations, and assist with obtaining IRB approvals. By helping with these processes, RCA provides a service that would be difficult for individual PIs to achieve on their own in a limited study time period.
The RCA is rapidly expanding to support YCC investigators’ need for non-therapeutic study management and support. This includes not only specimen collections, transportation, and shipment from Smilow Cancer Hospital locations, but also assistance to YCC investigators with chart review and patient contact studies that need administrative and research help.
Key benefits of using the RCA Shared Resource include the extensive laboratory expertise of our staff. They can prepare samples for shipment to designated laboratories when no processing is needed, or provide onsite stabilization of biospecimens in the researcher’s lab when appropriate.
The RCA also offers researchers flexibility on demand—without the need to hire additional staff—and supports collaboration across the full study life cycle, from planning and participant recruitment through data collection and study closeout.
Available to Yale researchers & external researchers
Services
Services include:
- Consultation and assistance in protocol writing in appropriate areas (protection of human subjects, confidentiality, impact on institutional facilities, etc.) and design of the required institution-specific consent documents, physician and patient contact letters.
- Obtaining all non-Yale approvals to conduct the research (State of CT, all community hospital IRBs, hospital administrative and departmental approvals, where necessary).
- Serving as an honest broker for studies, identifying, requesting, and obtaining radiology films/scans.
- Providing, or arranging for, other kinds of data collection.
- Managing the collection, transportation, and shipment of specimens (blood, stool, CSF, etc.).
- Acting as a resource to the health care community in those areas relating to cancer prevention and control, including facilitating interaction between investigators with common interests and goals.
- Providing feedback of all published results of research to participating institutions; acknowledgment of participating institutions in print.
Contacts
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Core/facility
Keck Biophysical Resource
As of 2026, the Keck Biophysical Resource will no longer be available for services except for NIDA investigators, who will still have access to some technologies.
Ewa Folta-Stogniew, PhD, MSc
Director (Retired) -
Core/facility
Yale Center for Molecular Discovery
We provide resources for assay development and high-throughput screening with small molecules and arrayed siRNA and sgRNA/CRISPR libraries in biochemical, cell-based and image-based assays (primarily 384-well format).
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Core/facility
Chemical Metabolism Core
Previously called the Islet, Oxygen consumption, Mass Isotopomer flux Core (IOMIC), the Chemical Metabolism Core offers targeted and untargeted metabolomics, stable isotope-based metabolic flux analysis, quantitative metabolic panels of central carbon metabolism and adjacent pathways, measurements of cellular bioenergetics, islet isolation and functional studies. Services include study assistance and data analysis.