National Antivisection Society
Research projects 2001 - UK Human tissue bank
The Lord Dowding Fund has recently purchased a new High Pressure Liquid Chromatography (HPLC) machine for the UK Human Tissue Bank (UKHTB).
In the search for alternatives to the use of animals, human tissue can offer a viable replacement for many experiments. It can be used to evaluate potential new drugs, for fundamental biomedical studies and toxicological testing.
Significantly, human tissue provides data for the right species humans. So why is it not used more extensively instead of misleading animal tests? A major factor holding back the full use of human tissue is the lack of a continuous and reliable supply. Scientists may be reluctant to plan research projects using human tissue when there is no guarantee that tissue will be available when required.
To resolve this, in 1998 a British non-profit human tissue bank was established at De Montfort University. The UKHTB has the staff and facilities to deal with donated human tissue research and ensure this is available to researchers on demand.
The UKHTB collects non-transplantable human tissue from 53 hospitals nationwide. Staff are available 24 hours a day, seven days a week to receive the tissue which is delivered by the ambulance service. Tissue is then processed and distributed to researchers in universities, medical institutions and the pharmaceutical industry.
The tissue is donated from two main sources: organs and tissues that are not suitable for transplantation from brain dead organ donors and tissue that is surplus to diagnostic requirement from patients undergoing routine surgery in a hospital.
The new HPLC instrument (above), from the LDF, will allow the UKHTB to characterise the human tissue for enzyme content to enable the exact requirements of scientists to be met.
If supply and use of human tissue can become straightforward and efficient a vast number of animals could be saved across a wide range of research disciplines. For example, at the University of London novel anticancer agents are being analysed for metabolic activity using in vitro liver cells. Scientists at the University of Leicester are using human liver and gut models to assess the metabolic activity of curcumin (turmeric spice), which is a known protective agent against cancer-causing chemicals. These experiments use human tissue supplied by UKHTB, but would previously have been performed on rodents.
Please help us end the abuse of animals, please make a donation today…
action alerts