Privacy Act Memo

DATE:

May 27, 2020

TO:

Joanne Demchok, Director
Cancer Diagnosis Program, Division of Cancer Treatment and Diagnosis
National Cancer Institute

FROM:

NIH Privacy Act Officer

SUBJECT: Applicability of the Privacy Act: Specimen Resource Locator (SRL)
I have reviewed the NCI submission to OMB to use the SRL database to increase its knowledge
of cancer biology, and translate important research discoveries to clinical application.
The SRL will catalogue NCI’s specimen resources. The database will allow NCI and scientists in
the research community to search and locate specimens needed for research. It will list all NCIsupported specimen repositories and a link to those repositories that can be shared with the
scientific community. The information collected from participating resources (i.e., cooperative
groups, networks, consortiums, universities, and projects) will be used to characterize the
inventory and allow scientists to query the SRL database by category, to retrieve the bio specimens
and annotations that may be needed for research:
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Specimen Type: tissue, blood, DNA, RNA and more
Preservation Method: Formalin-fixed Paraffin-embedded
Tumor Type: carcinoma, malignant tumor, sarcoma
Annotation Type: demography, risk factor, treatment, family history
Organization: academia, commercial, non-profit
Number of specimens
Collection Type: cancer clinical trial, collaboration, NIH/NCI

I have determined the Privacy Act will not apply to this information collection. The name and
contact information of the specimen resource company/institution participants will be collected
via a short, online information form. The form will facilitate the entry of specimen resource
information while creating a comprehensive database for the SRL. Meta data will be collected to
describe the specimen collections. However, no individual level data will be collected.
If you have any questions, please contact my office at (301) 402-6201.

Celest Dade-Vinson
cc: Diane Kreinbrink, NCI PRA Liaison