Arden Tissue Bank, based at University Hospital Coventry, aims to provide researchers with access to a diverse range of high quality human tissue, whilst complying with legislation & regulation.
Arden Tissue Bank has access to routine surgical tissues that have been taken for diagnosis. Once diagnosis has been established, this tissue is normally discarded or destroyed. Arden Tissue Bank can, by application, sample tissues surplus to diagnosis and make them available for ethically approved projects.
Arden Tissue Bank managment comittee acts as the access comittee. It comprises of patient and public lay members, UHCW governance, clinicians and local university senior academics.
All applicants are asked for for a lay summary, this lay summary is reviewed by the lay members of the committee. If they do not understand the proposed research then the applicant will be asked to rewrite the lay summary - before the application is accepted.
To help quality assure all of our services Arden Tissue Bank is now working towards achieving the new International biobanking standard: ISO 20387.
In addition Arden Tissue Bank is one of the first biobanks in England to adopt the UKCRC Tissue Directory Transparency Principles.
We felt this was important to give donors, relatives and researchers assurance that samples are handled appropriately, respectfully and in an open, transparent way. Details of the principles can be found here.
In cases where it is not possible to transplant donated organs and tissues into recipients, and the donor has consented for use of their tissues for research, Arden Tissue Bank attempt to place the samples with ethically approved research studies.
Examples of tissues available include:
Applicants are advised to consider their requirements for cold ischaemic time, and the range for collection. Data available to researchers on transplant patients is more limited due to NHSBT data restrictions.
All samples will be supplied in a link anonymised way, with where possible an agreed data set against each sample. Data will be aggregated as required from electronic patient records, patient notes and pathology reports.
Application form for tissues and/or ethical approval can be found here.
Arden Tissue Bank hosts the Coventry & Warwickshire node of the Tommys Reproductive Health Biobank, and acts as the co-ordinating centre for five other reproductive health tissue collections.
More details can be found on the Tommys National Reproductive Health Biobank Website
All samples within Arden Tissue Bank are stored in a secure manner and in compliance with the Human Tissue Act 2004.
This is the legal framework that exists within the UK to monitor the storage and use of human cells and tissues for research.
For more details on the Human Tissue Act please see the HTA website
Human tissue in research plays a vital role in developing a deeper understanding of human disease processes and their underlying mechanisms. Human Tissues can be can be used to predict the likely effectiveness of potential new therapies, identify new targets for therapies, and to identify some of the possible unwanted side effects of therapies.
The BBC news story below highlights the importance of human tissues to patient safety. The tests described have been developed utilising tissues supplied by Arden Tissue Bank
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-england-coventry-warwickshire-28437849/coventry-scientists-develop-new-heart-and-cancer-drugs-test
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