Rush Alzheimer's Disease Center
Data and Specimen Transfer Agreement Forms

We have an ever growing group of investigators around the country and world utilizing our data and specimens. We seek to make this vital resource available to as many investigators as possible while also streamlining the agreement process which can sometimes take quite a bit of time to complete.

We share with large institutions which can have many investigators from different departments and research groups. Since they are working on different grants/projects, the previous strategy would be to initiate a DUA for each request. In order to process the agreements, we were experiencing the same negotiation and re-negotitation of terms between RUSH and the participating institution. Our new process seeks to remedy the problem and saves much time and energy for both parties.

DUA – New process
We will execute a Master DUA between Rush University Medical Center(RUMC)/RADC and an institution once, and then investigators from that institution will execute an exhibit to tether that agreement to their particular request with the RADC.

Important points about the DUA
  • All of our data is termed a "limited data set" because our data exists outside of RUMC in shared data sets as well as publicly available sites (which includes genomics). We use the same digit identifier for participants/cases, so the combination of outside resources could possibly identify a participant. We do not send out any protected health information, but our data is inherently limited. That language must remain in the DUA.
  • IP language should remain intact unless an investigator is planning on applying for IP which is extremely rare. In that case, there needs to be discussions on this issue prior to the request being considered by the RADC Distribution Committee.
  • The review process for publications must also remain intact. That process is mostly to insure that our research projects which generate the data and tissue are referenced properly.

UBMTA – New Process
The UBMTA Implementing Letter and Additional Terms will be signed once by an investigator and their institution. Once on file, they will use a 1 page exhibit for each biospecimen request. That exhibit contains details on the specimen specifics as well as the title of the project.

It is likely that your institution already has a master DUA on file with the RADC.

Please reach out to our Resource Sharing Coordinator to start the process of your DUA and MTA.
Greg Klein, gklein@rush.edu