Governance and quality

We have robust procedures and policies in place for all activities we undertake.

Human Tissue Act

All sample-related activities are performed under the legal framework of the Human Tissue Act (2004) and covered by the organisation's HTA license for research.

The Human Tissue Act (2004) regulates all organisations that remove, store, use and dispose of human tissue for research. A fundamental principle of the Act is consent: anyone donating samples must be fully informed and understand how their samples and the corresponding data may be used. This is known as 'informed consent'.

Quality management system

The Biobank is certified to meet the requirements of ISO 9001:2015 for its quality management system. Under this certification, all activities within the Biobank are performed according to standard procedures to ensure our high-quality service is consistently met.

In addition, we are working towards alignment with ISO 20387:2018 - General Requirements for Biobanking.

Data protection

The UK GDPR (UK General Data Protection Regulation) and the Data Protection Act 2018 cover the processing of all personal data by the University, irrespective of where the data is held and what format it is held in. All donor information is handled in strict accordance with the Data Protection Act 2018. The Biobank processes the donor’s personal information confidentially, with information about the donor’s identity stored separately from any samples and related data. The Biobank removes the donor’s personal information and any related information from its stored samples and replaces it with non-identifiable codes.