An important feature of ARMADA is to include and provide a first-ever platform for sharing bacterial isolates from existing strain repositories and academic or private collections. While the key mission of ARMADA is to provide a snapshot at the most current landscape of antimicrobial resistance, inclusion in the picture of the pre-collected ‘historic’ bacterial isolates has a tremendous value to understand the mechanisms and timeline of the resistance emergence and dynamics. Over the decades, hundreds of thousands of bacterial strains from dozens of species has been carefully collected, analyzed and stored. Many of those collections are unique and are a result of excellent hard work of hundreds of academic and clinical research teams and individuals. We invite the owners of historic collections to partner with ARMADA to take full benefits of their isolates and associated data for the sake of curbing the antibiotic resistance emergence and spread.
One way, you can partner with ARMADA by providing historic isolates of mutual interest and associated data to be deposited into our Biobank. These isolates will be properly processed and re-analyzed by the ARMADA team before inclusion in the database. You might also provide only the associated data to be curated and listed as entry in the ARMADA database, with the bacterial specimens remaining exclusively in your possession. Finally, we just could provide a link to your website or contact info with a succinct description of the type of collection in hand. In any case, we expect that the isolates in your possession are:
- of a known clinical, animal or environmental origin;
- collected in compliance with human subjects and vertebrate animals safely regulations;
- in case of being human origin, stripped on any personal identification information;
- likely to represent a pure culture;
- belonging to the species of a medical significance;
- of a known pattern of resistance to at least some clinically relevant antibiotic(s);
- available for sharing, and
- in condition workable for downstream processing (sub-culturing, antibiogram testing, genetic analysis, etc).
In case the bacterial samples of mutual interest to be shared with ARMADA, we will:
- supply pre-coded collection swab tubes for each type of specimen with a submission label;
- include brief protocols describing the samples extraction and shipment instructions,
- provide pre-paid return envelopes/containers that are compliant with local and national Hazardous Material Shipping guidelines;
- if necessary, pay you processing fees for each sample shipped to compensate for the time effort.
We recognize and honor that many of your research efforts pre-dated ARMADA, and we will make our best efforts to protect your work. To the extent that any bacterial or other biological samples are made available for use in ARMADA, we will complete separate Materials Transfer Agreements governing the terms on which these materials are made available. We will determine, in full agreement with you, under what conditions any bacterial, other biological samples, or data shared by you should be transferred and shared with other users of ARMADA.
Before the strains transfer, we also will use good faith efforts to reach with you a mutually acceptable agreement regarding the intellectual property rights, publication or any formal presentation of the results that ARMADA stuff could be obtained with your samples.
To initiate partnering discussions or to obtain any additional information please contact us using the form below. A special representative will be assigned to work with you directly to address your questions.