Policies on Research Tissue Bank | SingHealth Duke-NUS

Tissue Banking Activities are structured and organised activities involving human tissue for the purposes of facilitating current or future research or for public health or epidemiological purposes or any combination of such purposes including any of the following:
(a) the collection, storage, procurement or importation of human tissue;
(b) the supply, provision or export of human tissue.

A Tissue Bank means an individual or a body of persons, whether corporate or unincorporate, or other organisation, that carries on or conducts any tissue banking activity. It is a repository of human biological materials that are intended to be used for research purposes.

A Research Tissue Bank in SingHealth needs to receive (1) approval for its operations and tissue banking activities and (2) ethics clearance for its tissue collection protocol(s) before registering with MOH. Applications shall be submitted to the STGC and SingHealth Central Institution Review Board (CIRB), respectively.

A. Setting up a new Research Tissue Bank
Researcher must first seek management approval for the setup of a research tissue bank within the Institution (Refer to policy SHS-RSH-ORIC-CWP-301). Following the approval, the researcher will submit SingHealth Research Tissue Bank Application Form for the new Research Tissue Bank to the STGC for review and approval.

In parallel, the Research TB to submit the Tissue Bank Collection Protocol(s) to CIRB for ethical review, where applicable.

Following approval, SingHealth ORIC will notify MOH of the new research tissue bank setup. The new research tissue bank can only start its tissue banking activities after notifying MOH. MOH notification is required no later than 30 days before the start of first tissue banking activity.

Setting up a new Research Tissue Bank in SingHealth

B. Conducting tissue banking activities under the oversight of a Research Tissue Bank

A Research Tissue Bank must provide oversight and be responsible for a researcher conducting tissue banking activities.

SingHealth researchers intending to perform tissue banking activities for future research under the purview of an existing Research TB in SingHealth must obtained approval from the Research TB in SingHealth before conducting the tissue banking activities.