Biobanking has been recognized as a cornerstone of translational research and the development of personalized therapy. Examples of such discoveries are Her2neu positive patients in breast and gastrointestinal carcinomas, and treatment sensitivity of gastrointestinal stromal tumors to KIT/PDGFRA receptor tyrosine kinase inhibitors. Since those discoveries, the complexity and heterogeneity of tumor molecular phenotypes has proven to be a challenge to the progress of molecular medicine in cancer therapy. The ability to develop a personalized therapy requires access to sufficient numbers of biospecimens and to a multidisciplinary cadre of research expertise. This is where collaboration across a network such as the sister institutions of the Global Academic Programs becomes critical to creating a large enough pool of biospecimens combined with a multi-institutional, multi-disciplinary resource of experts in clinical and molecular profiling to drive the field forward.