The exchange and transfer of biospecimens and related data in an academic context is usually contractually regulated in a Material Transfer Agreement (MTA). Currently, biobanks within Germany use different MTAs, while younger biobanks may not yet have an MTA in place.

Use as a stand-alone contract

In order to ease the burden on biobanks and to facilitate the exchange and transfer of biospecimens and related data in an academic context, the German Biobank Node (GBN) has developed a standardised contract template (in German). It can be used as a stand-alone contract and can be adapted to suit individual needs.

Preliminary work in ABIDE_MI

The work on this template is based on the Annex to the Data and Biospecimen Use Contract of the ABIDE_MI project. "Aligning Biobanking and DIC Efficiently" is a project funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) between the GBN, 24 university medical centres and the coordination office of the Medical Informatics Initiative (MII).

The MTA template is available for partner and observer biobanks of the German Biobank Alliance (GBA) on the internal platform "Confluence".