Material cannot be released for use in research until a formal application is approved.
- Applications are made electronically via the Tissue Bank database.
- If you are already registered as a user of the database , click on "Apply for research project" on the left hand side menu to start your application.
- If you are not yet a registered user of the Tissue Bank database, please email the Tissue Bank to activate your account.
- Applications are reviewed by our Application Review Panel, which usually takes up to 21 days. The purpose of the review is to ensure that the samples are put to good scientific use.
- Following approval of the application, the research is deemed to have ethics approval from the Wales REC3 committee for their project. This means that researchers using the Tissue Bank material do not have to submit their own IRAS (Integrated Research System Application) form.
Researchers must sign a ICHTB Material Transfer Agreement (MTA) when requesting access to material. Where samples are to be sent to third parties as part of the research, this must be specified in the protocol. In this instance, an ICHTB Material Transfer Agreement for Collaborators must be signed.
Following approval, samples are released to researchers with an accompanying list providing a minimum dataset - the ICHTB ID number, donor's date of birth, date of operation/procedure (the date on which the sample was taken), gender, ethnicity, and pathological diagnosis. All information and samples are identified to researchers only by their ICHTB ID number, therefore protecting donor confidentiality. Archive samples are released with only their ICHTB ID number.
Researchers must provide a report on the use of their samples within an agreed timeframe and provide recognition of the source of their samples and the funder of the Tissue Bank (NIHR BRC) in any publication. The following statement should be used in publications requiring a statement of ethical approval
"Human samples used in this research project were obtainined from the Imperial College Healthcare Tissue Bank (ICHTB). ICHTB is supported by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Biomedical Research Centre based at Imperial College Healthcare Trust and Imperial College London. ICHTB is approved by Wales REC3 to release human material for research (22/WA/0214), and the samples for this project Rxxxxx (give approved project number e.g., R12004) were issued from sub collection reference number xxx_xx_xx_xxx (give sub collection reference number)."
