Research Donors has a large and diverse community of more than 3,000 healthy volunteer donors, which enables us to collect blood samples that optimally match researchers’ requirements.

We routinely provide samples from specific donors on the basis of factors that are relevant to many biomedical research applications;

• HLA type and blood group
• Previous infection history with viruses (including CMV and EBV)
• Age (18-66), BMI, Ethnicity, Sex
• Lifestyle factors including diet, nicotine and caffeine usage 

Our recruitment process can assist you in finding a cohort of donors that match your needs with a level of control that cannot be matched from small local donor pools or national therapeutic collection services.

Many of our clients choose to screen multiple donors for biomarkers of interest to them and subsequently recall specific individuals for follow up collections of either whole blood products or leukopaks. 

Our donors are healthy and medication free, so samples from these donors can be used in your research studies without the potential complications that might arise from the presence of pathologies or bioactive substances such as prescription medications. 

Sourcing biospecimens from public blood collection organizations gives you no control over this important factor and even common medications such as ibuprofen, antihistamines, steroids and vaccines can have significant impacts on immune cell function which might affect your research.

Our donors need to meet our full eligibility requirements to be able to donate. This includes being excluded if to donor has taken any prescription or over-the-counter medication (except contraception) in the past 7 days. On arrival at our clinic donors complete a thorough health questionnaire concerning their current and past medical history that is reviewed individually with a member of our clinical team. 

Our service has been reviewed and approved by an NHS HRA Ethics Committee in the UK. Research Donors is licensed to collect and store biospecimens by the Human Tissue Authority.

Our consent form has been developed and optimised to ensure that our donors are consented for the full range of research applications, covering among other things, genetic research and research involving the use of animals.  These uses are not normally covered by consent forms in public blood donation services and this can be a major restriction on how such samples can be used in the modern research environment.

Our consent form is also very clear that recipients may use the samples provided in commercial research organisations and that all intellectual property rights to discoveries that may be made using the material provided are waived by donors.

This robust consent process ensures the maximum flexibility and clarity for our clients working in the biotechnology, diagnostics, medtech and pharmaceutical industries.

Donors are reimbursed a reasonable consideration for their time and inconvenience whilst attending their appointment. Donors are reimbursed on each occasion that they attend the clinic and participate in a screening or donation process. There is no difference in the reimbursement paid to donors regardless of the volume of blood that they donate. 

A standard donation normally requires that the donor will be at the clinic for 1 hour to complete the screening and donation process and for this donors are paid an inconvenience fee of £45.00.

When specific donors are recruited for a study at a specified time, or asked to attend the clinic at a socially inconvenient time they may receive a higher fee. 

For apheresis collections donors are required to attend significantly longer appointments (several hours). For this inconvenience the fee is higher than for short whole blood donations.

We offer our blood biospecimens in a wide range of collection devices, volumes and formats to ideally match your research project needs.

Whole blood is provided in either bags or a wide range of anticoagulant and other specialist collection tubes. Whole blood is also processed rapidly in our lab to provide derivatives including plasma, serum, PBMCs and isolated immune cells.

We also collect leukopaks by apheresis using  multiple Spectra Optia Apheresis Systems in our clinic.

We give you greater control over how samples are collected to best suit your research needs. We can manage the collection device, processing times, storage and handling temperature, centrifugation parameters and many other variables in order that our samples fir in with your ideal protocol.

*Delivery options are location dependent. Overnight delivery available in UK and Europe. Same day is available in certain UK locations. Frozen samples can be shipped worldwide.

Our sample processing and testing laboratory is directly connected to our blood donation clinic, meaning we are able to process and test blood samples ready for distribution in very short timespans.

We undertake a range of time critical blood, virology and cell analysis tests onsite. 

All blood samples are tested for HIV, Hepatitis B&C, Syphilis and must be confirmed negative before progressing into laboratory processing, or be released to customers. Whilst researchers must always assume that blood samples may be infectious, our test-before-release policy is a useful reassurance that samples arriving in your lab have been tested for infectious agents.

We work with trusted Distributor partners to provide researchers around the world with access to our blood biospecimens.

These partners have local technical and customer service teams who work closely with us to provide you with efficient, helpful local support. 

Every time that we work with a client there is a need for some planning in order to optimize our collection and delivery service to meet their needs and our Distributors help to make this a fast and straightforward process.

Together we will work with you to;

Understand your requirements
We can discuss donor selection parameters, scheduling sample collection and agree on sample format and testing

Give you clear pricing
We will give you clear costings and work with your organization’s procurement processes

Plan and organize delivery
We work together to prepare for the shipping and delivery of samples to your laboratory, knowing that on time delivery of your samples is of critical importance.

Fresh samples generally need to be ordered approximately 1 week in advance of delivery (exact timings to be confirmed). 

Frozen stock samples can be selected and reserved via the Research Donors online stock system. This system gives you the opportunity to select the ideal frozen samples in our inventory, to receive a quote from our Distributor and then place an order for the samples to be shipped to you.