Biospecimen Resource Request

If you are interested in using data from the RADC, please review the Data and Resource Sharing Policy as well as the Data and Biologic Material Transfer Agreement before submitting a request for data or specimens. You will need to create an account (with username and password) to use the request system.

No screening for infectious agents has been performed on tissues or bodily fluids provided by the Rush Alzheimer's Disease Center. Any material shared is understood to be experimental in nature and may have hazardous properties. It is essential that the recipient takes appropriate precautions when handling samples from human subjects.

Biospecimens

Create Biospecimen Request

Several types of biospecimens are available from ante-mortem and post-mortem from RADC cohorts, including the following types:

  • Brain tissue (fixed and frozen)
  • Spinal cord
  • Muscles (Post-mortem)
  • Nerve (Post-mortem)
  • DNA
  • Cryo-preserved Lymphocytes
  • Serum
  • Plasma
  • CSF (Post-mortem)
  • iPSC lines

iPSC lines on 90 participants (33 ROS and 57 MAP) have been generated and maintained by the New York Stem Cell Foundation (NYSCF).

Additional information on the iPSC lines can be found at the NYSCF website.

Tracy Young-Pearse (tpearse@bwh.harvard.edu) can also be contacted via e-mail for requestors seeking additional information on the lines.

The following -omics datasets have been generated on the iPSC lines are available from Synapse:

Any projects using the iPSC are asked to cite the following publication that originally described the first 53 lines:

Stem cell-derived neurons reflect features of protein networks, neuropathology, and cognitive outcome of their aged human donors.

Lagomarsino VN, Pearse RV 2nd, Liu L, Hsieh YC, Fernandez MA, Vinton EA, Paull D, Felsky D, Tasaki S, Gaiteri C, Vardarajan B, Lee H, Muratore CR, Benoit CR, Chou V, Fancher SB, He A, Merchant JP, Duong DM, Martinez H, Zhou M, Bah F, Vicent MA, Stricker JMS, Xu J, Dammer EB, Levey AI, Chibnik LB, Menon V, Seyfried NT, De Jager PL, Noggle S, Selkoe DJ, Bennett DA, Young-Pearse TL.Neuron. 2021 Nov 3;109(21):3402-3420.e9. doi: 10.1016/j.neuron.2021.08.003. Epub 2021 Sep 1.PMID: 34473944

External requests for blood-based biospecimens are currently not being reviewed due to limited availability.

Application Process

Enter Request

The application process is implemented through a web-based form. As each page is completed the form is saved. Any page can be updated at any time before the form is submitted.

  1. Investigator Intent for Intellectual Property
  2. Principal Investigator or Project Leader
  3. Co-Investigators
  4. Study Information
    • Title
    • For funded projects - funding source, agency, grant number
    • For preliminary projects - preliminary funding source, planned submission agency, due date, allowable costs
  5. Specimen
    • Specimen requested
    • Procedure to be done on specimen
    • Number of cases and clinical diagnoses
    • Clinical inclusion and exclusion criteria
    • Pathological inclusion and exclusion criteria
  6. Experimental Plan
    • Brief analytic plan
    • Study cohorts for request
  7. Data Requested
    • Categories
    • Variables
  8. Ante-mortem MRI Imaging Data
    • MRI Processing Output
    • MRI Raw Output
  9. Other Information
    • Additional information on data requested for analyses
    • FedEx number
    • RADC Collaborator
    • Comment
  10. Upload Documents
  11. Review and Submit

Submit the Request

From this point on, the web system will direct the next steps. The system will send updates to email address of primary investigator. You may want to consider using the address of another staff member who will be in charge of tracking progress.

Steps

Committee - Your request will be reviewed by the RADC Resource Distribution Committee

3 outcomes (all notified to applicant via email)

  1. Rejected - explanation will be given.
  2. Returned for revisions prior to approval.
  3. Approved

The next three steps can be occurring simultaneously following approval.

  1. Obtain signatures on the appropriate Material Transfer Agreement (MTA). The correct agreement depends on whether your institution is a signatory to the Uniform Biological Materials Transfer Agreement. For more information and actual agreements, see the transfer agreements forms page. You should start immediately after request approval as this step can sometimes take as much as a few months to work through.
  2. Work on general timeline of delivery of data with Resource Sharing Coordinator, Greg Klein (Gregory_Klein@rush.edu).
  3. Refine data needs with Resource Sharing Coordinator.

After agreement is fully executed and saved on file at Rush, you will receive your data.

The Data and Specimen Sharing Agreements with the National Institutes of Health require Rush investigators to track the distribution of all data and specimens, including the recipients' grant numbers and funding.

Questions?

If you have any questions about any of the below items, please contact RADC Data Sharing Coordinator Greg Klein at Gregory_Klein@rush.edu.

Brain Processing Procedure