Informed Consent: Education & Conversation Before Participation
Anyone who decides to become part of the Discover Together Biobank must first agree to give their consent. Consent is defined as “agreeing to do something.”
But in research, consent means more than that. We think of it as a process – a combination of education and conversation before you sign on to the study – to make sure that you understand it fully before deciding to participate.
Consent is such an important part of the research process that we have aligned ours with two other leading children’s hospitals: Boston Children’s and Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. This way, our researchers can collaborate with their experts and coordinate research much faster. This is especially critical in rare disease research, where we may need to combine biobanked samples across several large hospitals to have enough to learn about the disease process or discover treatments.