Operational Standards and benchmarks

onCore UK has been created to assist the pathway of biosamples from patients wishing to help future cancer research to researchers who need to study high quality, annotated cancer biosamples.  By providing standardised and authoritative technical and ethical protocols, onCore UK will be able to ensure an increase in the availability of quality tissue and blood samples and their associated patient data.

onCore UK has developed standard operating procedures for the collection and storage of biosamples from cancer patients.  Anonymised samples will then be made available to researchers who demonstrate their intention to conduct scientifically approved, ethical research into cancer according to our access policy.

We will work with other biobanks, for example through the Confederation of Cancer Biobanks, towards the creation of best-practice benchmarks and toolkits as the basis of a biobank affiliation or accreditation scheme.

Ethics and Standards Advisory Panel

onCore UK has been granted ethical approval as a Research Tissue Bank by an NHS Research Ethics Committee.  All biosamples and information are donated by cancer patients who have given informed consent.  Our consent documents have also been approved by the Research Ethics Committee, and hospital staff are trained in the onCore UK consent process.

We are committed to a robust framework fo ethics and standards.  onCore UK has convened an Ethics and Standards Advisory Panel to provide independent advice to the Trustees of onCore UK on the ethics of the use of human biosamples in medical research and any related considerations for the organisation.

This Ethics and Standards Advisory Panel have helped to ensure that the content of our Ethics and Standards Statement (see right) is appropriate.

The Panel Members are:

	Professor Martin Bobrow CBE FRS FRCP, FRCPath - Chairman 1995 - 2005 - Emeritus Professor of Medical Genetics, University of Cambridge
	Nick Ross TV & Radio Presenter, Journalist and Conference Moderator Former presenter of the BBC series, Crimewatch UK, and host of Radio 4's high-level debate, The Commission.Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and the Royal Society of Medicine, and an Honorary Fellow of University College London.
	Professor Ruth Chadwick Distinguished Research Professor at Cardiff University and Director of CESAGen. Chair of the Human Genome Organisation (HUGO) Ethics Committee and Co-editor of journal Bioethics.
	Neil Formstone Patient Chair of the Patient Liaison and Ethics Committee, Wales Cancer Bank. Appointed Vice-chair of the Royal College of Pathologists Lay Group and also works with various charitable organisations throughout the UK.
	Tara Camm, Solicitor, LL.B, LL.M Secretariat Director & General Counsel for the International Save the Children Alliance. Consultant for the Wellcome Trust – advising on issues relating to the law, regulation, ethics and governance of research: currently advising on the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill and the use of patient data in research. Former Principal Solicitor for the Wellcome Trust: advising on a broad range of legal, regulatory, ethics and governance issues affecting biomedical research, both in policy and in practice. Tara led the legal work for the creation of UK Biobank, its Ethics and Governance Framework and Ethics and Governance Council.