Abstract: An e-commerce exchange for gathering and managing a widely distributed inventory of blood, tissue and other samples for the biomedical research community and pharmaceutical industries worldwide. Samples belonging to registered sample providers are entered into a database at a central host site which is part of a distributed computer network. The samples are tagged by fields to cross reference the samples according to a number of specified criteria. Registered buyers search the database according to desired criteria. When the criteria of the search request matches the criteria specified for a particular sample, the central host site approves and supervises transfer of the particular sample from the supplier to the requesting buyer. Additionally, when the search request is not successful, there being no matching sample, the buyer may enter the requested sample criteria onto a wish list.