TBI BRAC

The BRAC committee will assess the applications based on experimental rationale, feasibility/reproducibility of the assays, expertise of the investigator, availability of the institutional resources to support the study, and the statistical analysis of the number of samples required for the hypothesis testing. Investigators will be notified by email of the outcome of the review (i.e. approve, approve upon revisions, or deny) within a week after the review meeting. Summary statements are released 2-3 weeks after review. For applications that were ‘approved upon revisions’, investigators will be notified about concerns that would need to be addressed before the application could move forward. Please note that the TBI BRAC does not provide funding.

If sample access is approved by the TBI BRAC, the two possible outcomes are:

1. If the study has funding, the samples are distributed to the investigator following a virtual meeting to introduce the sample distribution process (“on-boarding”) and after fulfilment by the investigator of additional requirements specified by BioSEND (i.e. MTA, Data Use Agreement, data analysis and sharing plan). For questions, please contact Rebecca Price, Ph.D.
2. If the investigator has yet to obtain funding for the study, the BRAC will issue a letter to the applicant documenting provisional access to the samples requested. This letter can be used to support an application for funding opportunities from the NIH or other organizations. Conditional approvals will be valid for a period of up to 12 months.

To facilitate scientific rigor and reproducibility, samples for approved applications are shipped blinded (each aliquot is labeled with a Sample ID). The BioSEND team will work with investigators during the onboarding call to create box designs to facilitate blinded analyses. Investigators must return their assay analyses into an appropriate data repository prior to being unblinded by BioSEND.

Chairperson

Members