About the ADTB
A Victorian initiative connecting organ donation with medical research
The Australian Donation and Transplantation Biobank (ADTB) is an open access biobanking resource that offers the scientific community access to high-quality human biospecimens for research studies. The ADTB collaborates with DonateLife Victoria and the Liver Transplant Unit at Austin Health to give organ donors' families the opportunity to donate their loved ones samples directly to medical research when not used for transplantation. Donated samples are retrieved by a surgeon and distributed directly to researchers or stored for future use.
Researchers from within Australia can apply to the ADTB to access samples for their research. The ADTB then provides samples to the collaborating researcher if the research project meets the required ethical and scientific standards. Samples are only released to researchers whose research has been approved by a Human Research Ethics Committee (HREC). The HREC reviews the research to ensure that it is ethically and scientifically sound and will be conducted in accordance with the National Statement on Ethical Conduct in Human Research (2007).
