Nottingham Digestive Diseases Centre Research Tissue Bank (NDDC Research Tissue Bank)
Your biological samples will enable researchers within the Nottingham Digestive Diseases Centre to investigate disease and make scientific breakthroughs which improve the health and care of patients in the future.
What is the NDDC Research Tissue Bank?
It is a local collection of biological samples from patients, research participants and Healthy Volunteers (HV's), stored and made available to researchers for new research projects investigating digestive health.
Our research centre’s mission is to take promising scientific research breakthroughs and translate them into patient benefit. We focus on the first stage of introducing new treatments, tests and clinical management strategies to patients and on using blood and tissue samples from patients for clinically-relevant biomedical research.
Samples:
We would like to invite participants to donate biological samples (blood, urine, stool or skin swab or tissue left over from clinical procedures/diagnostics) to our Research Tissue Bank.
- We would like to store and use any samples leftover from research studies in the tissue bank for future research.
- We would also like to store biological samples leftover from medical tests that patients had at the hospital for future research. These patients will be identified by their care team where appropriate for projects.
- We would also like to collect an extra biological sample from some people attending our Centre for use in research projects.
Important information about the NDDC Research Tissue Bank:
The Research Tissue Bank is funded by the NIHR Nottingham Biomedical Research Centre which is funded through the NHS. All our staff are part of the Nottingham Univeristy Hospitals NHS Trust and the Univeristy of Nottingham.
We are curently recruiting participants for this study at the Queen's Medical Centre, Nottingham.
Tissue Bank Location: University of Nottingham (Nottingham Digestive Diseases Centre, School of Medicine, Queens Medical Centre).
Contact Details: nddcbru@nottingham.ac.uk
Important things to know about participating in the study:
We are recruiting adults (aged 16 and over) with liver or gastrointestinal disorders and healthy volunteers to donate additional biological samples or permit use of your surplus clinical samples for future medical research into liver and gastrointestinal disorders.
What will I be asked to do?
A nurse/ research practitioner from our research team will arrange an appointment for you which will usually be incorporated into your routine clinical visit/research visit. You will be given a resonable amount of time to read the participant information sheet and opporunity to consider enrolment before being approached for consent. After you have read and signed the consent form, the research nurse or doctor will:
- Answer any questions you have.
- Discuss your health and medical history (e.g. your medications).
- If appropriate, ask you to donate biological samples leftover from your medical care or from a research study or clinical trial which has ended (e.g. blood, urine, stool).
- If appropriate, ask you to donate tissue from a biopsy/procedure done as part of your medical treatment (once sufficient sample has been used for your diagnosis).
- Take your consent if you agree to take part.
- Collect and record basic information about you.
Your participation is voluntary and you can decide to withdraw from the tissue bank at any time without giving a reason. This will not affect your medical care or legal rights. However, we may not be able to retrieve/remove all your donated samples and data afterwards as they may already have been sent to researchers or used in their research.
We will not inform your GP about your donation but it will be recorded in your medical notes at the hospital.
How will my samples be stored?
Samples will be stored in University of Nottingham laboratories in the Queens Medical Centre. This storage facility is licensed by the Human Tissue Authority and follows procedures that ensure the security, quality and integrity of the samples. Samples will be listed as available to other researchers for collaborative projects via the UKCRC tissue directory: https://www.biobankinguk.org/.
Samples in the tissue bank will be made available for medical and health related research projects (in anonymised format):
- Samples will be allocated to researchers through an access committee containing clinicians, scientists and non-scientists. They will prioritise projects by researchers affiliated with Nottingham Digestive Diseases Centre and NIHR Nottingham Biomedical Research Centre. This research may involve specialist analysis by commercial service providers.
- Projects by other researchers will be considered where they contribute to digestive disease research. If you do not want your samples to be sent to researchers outside our centre you can indicate this on the consent form.
- For some projects, analysis may require samples to be sent outside of the UK. If you do not want your samples to be used outside the UK, you can indicate this on the consent form.
What will my samples be used for?
- Researchers could measure the constituents of your blood, urine, stool and tissue giving an insight into disease.
- Research may involve growing cells in the laboratory from donated material to test new therapies.
- Researchers could analyse your DNA in the samples looking for DNA or gene patterns and variations. They could also do genetic tests to understand inherited aspects of disease (optional).
We will not be able to tell you the results individually as all samples will be anonymised. However, we will provide updates about research projects on our web page. Scientific findings from the research will also be described on our website and a written summary of the research will also be available.
Your samples will not be used for research involving reproductive cloning.
What are the benefits and risks of taking part?
There is no immediate direct benefits to you from donating your samples. However, research utilising your samples may enable further progress towards understanding liver and gastro-intestinal diseases.
It may assist in the development of new treatments, new tests for detection and diagnosis and facilitate small-scale projects to develop new laboratory techniques.
We will not sell samples.
We do not offer any payment to you for participating but we will try to minimise any inconvenience by any arranging an appointment alongside your usual medical/clinical visit or research visit. Your appointment may therefore be slightly longer. We will aim to give you details on timing so you can arrange travel and parking accordingly.
A trained nurse/healthcare professional will take blood for the tissue bank. Having your blood taken may result in some discomfort and slight bruising to your arm. There are no more risks to you than for giving a routine blood samples. There are no risks in collecting skin swabs, urine or stool samples if hygienic practice hand washing is followed.