About Ethical Tissue

Our services

We provide a wide variety of biosamples from ethically approved sources including healthy volunteers, recently deceased, and surplus therapeutic intervention.

We also have access to the rarer types of tissue, such as healthy brains, hearts and blood vessels, and our wide network of healthy volunteers means we can support researchers with requests for normal tissue samples.

Other services:

• On-site healthy volunteer consent and samples in academia and industry
• Support for NRES Approval and HTA Licensing Applications in the UK

Our facility

The bio-repository of Ethical Tissue is located in a Class 2 facility (positive air pressure) with electronic locking and key card entry allowing access only to specific employees of the University.  

The -80⁰C freezers have defined sub-compartments to aid traceability of stored tissues. There is a robust system of backup in the event of failure in the storage area and contingency plans in place.

All samples are appropriately stored according to the relevant standard operating procedures using fully maintained and monitored equipment.

Viable primary cells are stored in liquid nitrogen dewars (vacuum insulated containers).

Publications from Researchers who have worked with Ethical Tissue

Skin

Hart PJ, Francese S, Claude E, Woodroofe MN, Clench MR. MALDI-MS imaging of lipids in ex vivo human skin. Anal Bioanal Chem. 2011;401(1):115-125. doi:10.1007/s00216-011-5090-4

Hart, P.J., Francese, S., Woodroofe, M.N. et al. Matrix assisted laser desorption ionisation ion mobility separation mass spectrometry imaging of ex-vivo human skin. Int. J. Ion Mobil. Spec. 16, 71–83 (2013).doi.org/10.1007/s12127-013-0124-6

Kendall AC, Pilkington SM, Massey KA, Sassano G, Rhodes LE, Nicolaou A. Distribution of bioactive lipid mediators in human skin. J Invest Dermatol. 2015;135(6):1510-1520. doi:10.1038/jid.2015.41

Kendall AC, Kiezel-Tsugunova M, Brownbridge LC, Harwood JL, Nicolaou A. Lipid functions in skin: Differential effects of n-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids on cutaneous ceramides, in a human skin organ culture model. Biochim Biophys Acta Biomembr. 2017;1859(9 Pt B):1679-1689.

Haque T, Rahman KM, Thurston DE, Hadgraft J, Lane ME. Topical delivery of anthramycin I. Influence of neat solvents. Eur J Pharm Sci. 2017;104:188-195. doi:10.1016/j.ejps.2017.03.043

Paz-Alvarez M, Pudney PDA, Hadgraft J, Lane ME. Topical delivery of climbazole to mammalian skin. Int J Pharm. 2018;549(1-2):317-324. doi:10.1016/j.ijpharm.2018.07.058

Haque T, Rahman KM, Thurston DE, Hadgraft J, Lane ME. Topical delivery of anthramycin II. Influence of binary and ternary solvent systems. Eur J Pharm Sci. 2018;121:59-64. doi:10.1016/j.ejps.2018.05.002Kendall AC, Pilkington SM, Massey KA, Sassano G, Rhodes LE, Nicolaou A. Distribution of bioactive lipid mediators in human skin. J Invest Dermatol. 2015;135(6):1510-1520. doi:10.1038/jid.2015.41

Zhang Y, Kung CP, Sil BC, et al. Topical Delivery of Niacinamide: Influence of Binary and Ternary Solvent Systems. Pharmaceutics. 2019;11(12):668. Published 2019 Dec 10. doi:10.3390/pharmaceutics11120668

Breast

Shaheed SU, Rustogi N, Scally A, et al. Identification of stage-specific breast markers using quantitative proteomics. J Proteome Res. 2013;12(12):5696-5708. doi:10.1021/pr400662k

Shaheed SU, Tait C, Kyriacou K, et al. Nipple aspirate fluid-A liquid biopsy for diagnosing breast health. Proteomics Clin Appl. 2017;11(9-10):1700015. doi:10.1002/prca.201700015

Blood

Catenazzi MC, Jones H, Wallace I, et al. A large genomic island allows Neisseria meningitidis to utilize propionic acid, with implications for colonization of the human nasopharynx. Mol Microbiol. 2014;93(2):346-355. doi:10.1111/mmi.12664

Intervertebral Disc (Cadaveric)

Mader KT, Peeters M, Detiger SE, et al. Investigation of intervertebral disc degeneration using multivariate FTIR spectroscopic imaging. Faraday Discuss. 2016;187(1):393-414. doi:10.1039/c5fd00160a

Teeth (Tooth Fairy Study)

Beaumont, J. (2020) The Whole Tooth and Nothing but the Tooth: Or why Temporal Resolution of Bone Collagen May Be Unreliable. Archaeometry, 62: 626– 645. https://doi.org/10.1111/arcm.12544.

Ethical Tissue

Adams K, Martin S. Ethical tissue: a not-for-profit model for human tissue supply. Cell Tissue Bank. 2011;12(1):9-10. doi:10.1007/s10561-010-9203-7haheed SU, Tait C, Kyriacou K, et al. Nipple aspirate fluid-A liquid biopsy for diagnosing breast health. Proteomics Clin Appl. 2017;11(9-10):1700015. doi:10.1002/prca.201700015

Adams K, et al. Ethical Tissue: A Bioresource Specialising in Broad Prospective Supply of Tissue from a Wide Range of Participants. Open Journal of Bioresources. 2020. X: X. DOI: https://doi.org/10.5334/ojb.50