Yes, after the network approves your research project, there are additional steps involved in obtaining approval to use specimens collected outside of the United States. Many sites outside of the U.S. require the research project to be approved or exempted by their Institutional Review Board (IRB) before their specimens can be released. Additionally, many sites outside of the U.S. require that a Material Transfer Agreement (MTA) be established between the site and the testing laboratory before the specimens can be shipped. These IRB and MTA steps can take a significant amount of time and may delay mobilization of specimens.
Inventory available at the Vanderbilt DNA Repository can be found by selecting among the choices in the 'Select Below for Additional Summaries...' drop down either the 'Unique Participants with DNA Specimens by Study' or the 'DNA Amounts for Unique Participants with DNA Specimens'. If you need additional help with finding the specimens that meet your criteria, contact Frontier Science using the contact form on this page.
This website only displays information for completed studies. Investigators with a Frontier Science ePortal account and appropriate access can use the Specimen Inventory Report Utility (SIRU) to search data for ongoing studies.
To obtain specimens from the repositories, you must submit a research proposal to the network that collected the specimens. This proposal will be reviewed by the network. If the proposal is approved, the network will work with you to help you obtain the specimens that you need. Learn more about submitting a proposal »
This website is for gathering information about the types of specimens available at the repositories only. Research proposals are submitted and handled through a separate mechanism by the network that collected the specimens. Learn more about submitting a proposal »
Individual projects handle the proposal process. For ACTG proposals, contact ACTGProposals@s-3.com; for IMPAACT proposals, contact impaact.capsubmissions@fstrf.org; for HVTN proposals, contact vtn.research@hvtn.org.
Specimens are added to the repositories as studies conclude, and are shipped from the repositories when they are requested by investigators. As a result, the number of available specimens can change over time.
We can help you refine your search to get the most out of the search tool. If you need to search for specimens based on complex logic not available with the search tool, we may be able to create a custom-built specimen list. Contact Frontier Science using the contact form on this page.
Complex searches that deal with clinical or laboratory data that changes over time are not possible using the search tool. An example of such a search would be finding specimens from participants whose HIV viral load decreased over the course of treatment. Contact us for assistance generating specimen lists for such inquiries.