Can a scientist in a hospital stop a specimen transfer on the basis that the transfer can compromise his/ her previous work on the same niche of science or research rather than for safety reason?
Is there any clause of SOP/ documentation around the world that states that the specimen belongs to an indivvdual/a group rather than the largest governing body like the hospital?
Hi Helmi,
Your question is one of ownership in contrast to SOP. This is a legal issue and ownership is typically governed by contracts or deeds signed at the time of employment. For example, Intellectual Property (IP) belongs to the inventor unless assigned. In many employment contracts the assignment of IP is spelled out where both the employee and employer agree on specific rights to a discovery (i.e. "the specimen") at the time of employment. When this agreement/contract does not exist the inventor(s) claim inventorship which can't be disputed as long as appropriate paper trail documents the discovery. The institution will likely claim a portion of ownership secondary to funding the inventors work including salaries. As the "unique specimen" has now been discovered it would be wise to resolve any disputes between inventor(s) and employers prior to divulging or sending the ("specimen") to a third party. Once the "specimen" is in public domain it may make it difficult to patent the discovery.
Thanks for your reply,, BTW I am asking this as there was an occaasion whereby the specimen transfer was denied on the basis of the study of such specimen coincide with the person's (who signed the application form) study.. Thus can this happen?.. The specimen was collected from patients in my hospitaland stocked by an investigator and when we wanted to transfer out the specimen, the person was the stumbling block..
Thus I really want to know whether such policy is a common practice in other institution before I pursue this matter further
Investigators may become very possessive of specimens they have discovered which may lead to patent or publication. I presume your hospital is the funding institution and employer of the investigator. As such, you need an agreement with the investigator on ownership of specimen and how profits are to be shared. In addition, you should have a "Materials Transfer Agreement" (MTA) with any third party you wish to transfer the specimen. The MTA should be written in such a fashion to protects both the hospitals and the investigators (discover/inventor) interest and the recipient of transfer recognizes ownership, use and improvements thereof belong to the hospital and the investigator. You should be working as a team to capitalize on the discovery. Hope this helps.
From what i understand, it seems like somebody has taken the sample from your hospital and refusing to give it back to you so that you could send it further outside/ conduct research on it. If there was no MTA then it is difficult to get it back.
Usually in a number of research studies the patient is usually offered a choice to retract his participation or ask his sample to be retracted. So, in this case : Can you convince the patient from whom the sample was obtained to demand the sample back from the said person ?
- Badges
- Science topic
- Similar topics
- Biological Science
- Microbiology