Fourth meeting of the European Network of Research Tissue Banks - future strategy to increase collaborations in the supply of human tissue for biomedical research.

This report records the Fourth meeting of the European Network of Research Tissue Bank (Brussels, 18th March 2004) which was attended by Mel Read MEP. The existing membership of this informal group represents European Human Research Tissue Bankers, biomedical researchers seeking access to human tissue and allied groups including animal welfare representatives. This Fourth meeting provided a forum to update members on individual activity in this area. A particular focus of this meeting was to consider the status of this group and future affiliations to increase the profile and activity of this Network. This meeting addressed differences in legislative and ethical requirements governing the use of human tissue in biomedical research in the different countries represented. Future activity of the ENRTB, planned at this meeting, will target harmonisation of current differences which are currently barriers to increased access to human tissue for biomedical research. Through the harmonisation of procurement, processing and distribution of human tissue specimens the ENRTB will provide a mechanism to benefit human health through increased use of human tissue in pharmacotoxicological studies and the associated replacement of animal tests.

The establishment of the UK Human Tissue Bank.

The UK Human Tissue Bank (UKHTB) was established in 1998, to provide biomedical researchers with an effective, transparent and ethical supply of human tissues. The UKHTB collects and processes non-transplantable human tissue from cadaveric brain stem dead donors and surgical tissues surplus to diagnostic requirements, and distributes to researchers working in UK universities, medical institutions and the pharmaceutical industry. The UKHTB has gained approval from UK National Health Service Ethical Committees for the receipt of human tissues and transfers donated tissues to researchers with allied approval, who additionally agree to the scrutiny of the end-use of tissue by the UKHTB. All donations are made with the informed consent of the donor family or patient. In this way, all donations are traced from source to end-use. The UKHTB operates under a not-for-profit policy and employs a method of cost recovery to recoup processing, staff and transport costs; the tissue itself is not subject to a charge. We are confident that improved access to human tissue models results in more relevant results being ultimately available for clinical practice.

The establishment of a network of European human research tissue banks.

This is a report of a workshop held on the establishment of human research tissue banking which was held in Levi, Finland 21-24 March 2002. There were 21 participants from 7 European countries. This meeting was attended by representatives from academia, research tissue banks and from the Biotech and Pharmaceutical Industries. The principal aim of the workshop was to find a way to progress the recommendations from ECVAM workshop 44 (ATLA 29, 125-134, 2001) and ECVAM workshop 32 (ATLA 26, 763-777, 1998). The workshop represented the first unofficial meeting of the European Network of Research Tissue Banks (ENRTB) steering group. It is expected that in the period preceding the next workshop the ENRTB steering group will co-ordinate the ethical, legislative and organisational aspects of research tissue banking. Key issues dealt with by the Levi workshop included the practical aspects of sharing expertise and experiences across the different European members. Such collaboration between research tissue banks and end users of such material seeks to ultimately enable shared access to human tissue for medical and pharmaco-toxicological research while maintaining strict adherence to differences in legal and ethical aspects related to the use of human tissue in individual countries.