Accessing Biospecimens from the H3Africa Consortium
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Date
2017-04-01
Authors
Beiswanger, C.M
Abimiku, AI
Carstens, N
Christoffels, A
de Vries, J
Duncanson, A
du Plesis, M
Giovanni, M
Littler, K
Mulder, N
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Publisher
SAGE Publications
Abstract
A pan-African consortium, Human Health and Heredity in Africa (H3Africa), was initiated in 2010 to build research programs and infrastructure in genomic medicine on the African continent.1 A key component of this initiative is making biospecimens and data collected during the initial H3Africa research studies available to external investigators for future research. Although policies and procedures for sharing H3Africa genomic data and biospecimens have been combined, this article will address the process developed to enable the ethical and efficient sharing of the biospecimens and associated data. To this end, biorepositories have been established in Nigeria (HVN H3Africa Biorepository [I-HAB]), Uganda (Integrated Biorepository of H3Africa Uganda [IBRH3AU]), and South Africa (H3Africa Biorepository at Clinical Laboratory Services, University of the Witwatersrand). The biorepositories will preserve the consortium's DNA and other sample collections and also facilitate their distribution to support additional research efforts by African scientists and eventually the global biomedical community.2 Each H3Africa principal investigator (PI) has agreed to donate a portion of the DNA collected in his/her H3Africa study while retaining the rest for his/her own future research. All biospecimens to be made available for distribution from the H3Africa biorepositories were collected under appropriate informed consent with institutional and regional or national ethical review.
Consortium working groups were established to develop polices for biospecimen sharing and access that respect the interests of all stakeholders. H3Africa stakeholders include the biospecimen donors and their community; the PI and his/her team collecting the specimens and primary data; the institutional, local, and regional ethics committees; the local or national government where samples were collected and stored; the scientists who are granted access to shared biospecimens for additional research; and the eventual consumers of biomedical knowledge to be gained from these studies.3 Fundamental concepts were drawn from existing biorepository best practice documents,4–6 which were used to inform the policies developed by investigators and biorepository experts across the H3Africa Consortium.
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Citation
Beiswanger CM, Abimiku Al, Carstens N, Christoffels A , de Vries J, Duncanson A, du Plessis M, Giovanni M, Littler K, Mulder N, Troyer J, Wideroff L. Accessing biospecimens from the h3africa consortium. Biopreservation and Biobanking. 2017 Apr 01; 15(2): 95-8. DOI: 10.1089/bio.2017.0008