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Specimen Data Management Tool

The Specimen Data Management Tool (OpenSpecimen) is a Consortium-wide solution to support and enhance the management of specimen-associated data.

Fred Hutch campus

Key Objectives

  • Enhance ability of researchers to manage specimen-associated data, reduce duplicative efforts and inefficient use of time and resources across groups​
  • Strengthen downstream utility of data by aligning and standardizing data collection to a common model​
  • Involve key community stakeholders, advisory committee members and a broad set of users in design, implementation of a specimen data management tool
  • Enable collaborative research with external partners​

After several years of working with cross-divisional, interdisciplinary research teams and key stakeholders across the Consortium, we are excited to announce that we are now implementing a specimen data management system! In collaboration with these groups we developed detailed tool requirements, evaluated top specimen data management tool providers and refined a robust and comprehensive data model, that resulted in choosing a tool (Open Specimen) that we believe will meet the diverse needs of our researchers.

Open Specimen

OpenSpecimen is a highly configurable web-based Biobanking Laboratory Information Management System (LIMS) used in 70+ clinical research centers across 20+ countries - including many of the world’s leading research centers. OpenSpecimen helps you collect High-quality Biospecimen Data and track biospecimens from Collection to Utilization. 

To view a PDF document with the Open Specimen features, click here

To view a short video of the Open Specimen features, click here

Current Status - May 02, 2022

  • We have our first team live in Open Specimen - Our first group live in the system is IIRC (Immunotherapy Integrated Research Center) Collection for Health Donors - which was previously managed out of the Lab Donors System in the CORE suite of tools.
  • We will continue to build out the system over the next few months – we are currently working with the Translational Outcomes Repository (PHS Division) , Barry Lab (PHS Division) , Preclinical Modeling Core (Shared Resources) and Infectious Disease Repository (VIDD Division) teams and will be reaching out to the other teams that have signed up to begin onboarding activities. Our aim is to become as efficient in our onboarding processes as possible and scale up the speed at which we can get new teams into the tool.

If you are interested in using this tool to support your work, please fill out the OpenSpecimen Waitlist Form. We will reach out to your group as soon as we're able to incorporate your group into the onboarding plan. If you have questions about the project or the status of your group on the waitlist you can inquire at SpecimenData@fredhutch.org.