The Process
The TRACKER biobank is dedicated to supporting ethically-approved research that advances personalised medicine for patients with lung cancer. Our goal is to facilitate the discovery and validation of novel therapeutic targets and biomarkers, and to enable the rapid translation of research findings into clinical practice. We provide high-quality biospecimens and associated clinical data to researchers whose work aligns with these objectives through the following application process:
Obtain Ethics Approval
All proposed research involving human data and tissue must be approved by a Human Research Ethics Committee (HREC), and in Australia carried out according to the National Statement on Ethical Conduct in Human Research (2007). Human research conducted overseas must abide by the equivalent local regulations.
Submit EOI
Clinician and researcher investigators must submit an EOI to TRACKER to access data and tissue samples. The proposed research must be related to the overarching goals of this biobank including how the project could potentially benefit patients with lung cancer.
EOI Review
Your application will be reviewed by a member of the TRACKER Scientific Committee to ensure project alignment with TRACKER (eg. sample availability and non-competing objectives), and we will inform you of the outcome.
Submit Application
If the EOI is successful, you will be invited to submit a full application. You will be required to supply some supporting documents to complete the application (eg. ethics approval).
Application Review
Your application will be reviewed by the TRACKER Scientific Committee which will liaise with the Governance Committee for approval, and we will inform you of the outcome.
Establish Agreement
If the application is approved, a Material Transfer Agreement (MTA) is prepared and executed by all parties involved. Access to the approved TRACKER project assets will be organised by our team.
Project Initiation
You will need to regularly submit a 6-monthly report on the progress of the agreed project, as established by the MTA.
Post-project Reporting
Once your project is complete, data provided must be deleted and any remaining biological samples returned as directed by the TRACKER team. Any dataset generated by the project is to be provided to the biobank, to be made available for future research. We will work together to disseminate and promote the research outputs following an open access policy.
EOI Application
To request access to TRACKER samples and data, please complete the following EOI.
Our Vetting Process
Our Scientific Committee comprises the following members:
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Two Chief Investigators of TRACKER
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Scientist specialising in Therapeutics/in vivo/in vitro models
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Scientist specialising in Genomics
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Scientist specialising in Immunology
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EBUS Respiratory Physician
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Medical Oncologist
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Computational Biologist/Bioinformatician
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Project Manager
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Data Manager
This committee will leverage their collective expertise to assess the merit of all applications, evaluating the project's potential impact, the investigator's professional background, and research track record to assess capability of executing the proposal. Their goal is to ascertain whether the proposal qualifies as lung cancer research in the public interest and there is no duplication of work.