Receiving and Transferring Research Materials at the University
By Hoda Moussa and Jennifer Mandina Wiss
Published November 19, 2024
A Material Transfer Agreement (MTA) is a contract between a provider of a material and the recipient that memorializes the rights and responsibilities regarding research material. It defines who owns the material and provides the associated rights and responsibilities regarding that material.
Critical terms provided in an MTA:
- appropriate attribution of owner of materials in any publication;
- permissible uses of the material (typically for internal research use and not allowed in use of humans);
- may provide permission to modify the materials; and
- may provide permission to transfer materials and/or modifications.
As a reminder, you should not execute MTAs, or any other type of agreement with industry partners within your scope of work at UB. You can submit a request for review Click.
When do I need an MTA?
Whenever you wish to: (1) provide a material to a third party; or (2) receive a material that you are not purchasing from a commercial vendor*. Specific examples include:
- You are a new UB hire bringing with you research materials from your former institution.
- You are leaving UB and wish to take research materials with you.
- Where the material is unique, human-derived, genetically modified, or hazardous.
- You received an MTA template from the provider.
- You wish to transfer a material that you generated or isolated in your lab.
- Where any component of the material is owned by a third party.
*Please note that many vendors (ex – ATCC, Charles River Labs, Jackson Labs, etc.) have standard terms and conditions that control the use of the material you purchase. If you have any questions about those terms, please contact a member of the Tech Transfer Contracts team.
What is the process of initiating an MTA request?
- To initiate an MTA request, please submit a request through the Click Agreements Module:
https://www.buffalo.edu/research/research-services/click-implementation/modules/agreements.html.
- The information you will need to complete an entry in Click is as follows:
- company contact information;
- short scientific description of the material(s);
- origin type of the material;
- purpose of use of the material;
- IACUC/IBC/IRB protocol number or waiver (if applicable).
- Please contact IACUC if the material is of animal origin and IRB if the material is of human origin.
- Once the Click request has been assigned to a contracts team member, they will reach out to you with any questions they may have.
- The assigned contracts team member will negotiate the terms of the MTA with the entity of interest and contact you upon completion.
Why do I need an MTA?
An MTA may be required when providing or receiving material outside of the university. An MTA may be needed when transferring a third party material to an internal collaborator within the university. An MTA enables the provider to control how a material can be used. The use can range from the very general (ex - “research purposes”) to the very specific (ex - “for research as described in the attached exhibit”).
An MTA specifies the rights, obligations, and restrictions on the providing and receiving parties regarding issues such as ownership, publication, intellectual property, further distribution, permitted uses, and legal liability. The material provider maintains control over the distribution of the original material. We are generally unable to transfer third party materials or modifications without written permission from the original provider.
FAQs:
Materials in which you may seek to obtain from another research lab may also be made commercially available. If the material is commercially available, for example through Jackson Labs or Charles River, there are likely terms and conditions attached to its use and transfer. Generally, the terms and conditions enable internal research use of the purchased material. If you are contemplating the use of such purchased materials for any other purpose, Technology Transfer is here to review the terms and assist in finding a strategy to enable your use.
Journals may require that the material becomes accessible to the research community. Making a material “publicly accessible” does not mean that the material is in the public domain. The Technology Transfer office will prepare any MTA needed for the transfer of the material in these circumstances.
Please contact Technology Transfer and we will communicate with the institution that sent the material to you to receive the necessary permissions.
MTA TIP:
- Unless there are confidentiality terms in the MTA, confidential information should NOT be exchanged under an MTA.
- An MTA is executed exclusively for obtaining (or providing) research materials for your internal research (or recipient’s internal research).
- If you are interested in collaborating with the provider of the materials or a third party, a Sponsored Research Agreement (SRA), Testing Agreement (TA), or Cooperative Research and Development Agreement (CRADA) may need to be executed.
This article was written by our law student extern, Ashley Asanjarani and Contracts Managers, Hoda Moussa and Jennifer Mandina Wiss. Please feel free to email Hoda at hodamous@buffalo.edu for more information.
If you have any general contracts related questions, please feel free to reach out to any one of our contracts team members: https://www.buffalo.edu/research/about-us/staff-directory/techtransfer.html or email us at techtransfer@buffalo.edu.