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.
Orr
Samantha
S
UK Human Tissue Bank, De Montfort University, Innovation Centre, Oxford StreetLeicester, LE1 5XY, UK(samantha@ukhtb.org)
Alexandre
Eliane
E
Clark
Brain
B
Combes
Robert
R
Fels
Lueder M
LM
Gray
Neil
N
Jönsson-Rylander
Ann-Cathrine
AC
Helin
Heikki
H
Koistinen
Jukka
J
Oinonen
Teija
T
Richert
Lysiane
L
Ravid
Rivka
R
Salonen
Jarmo
J
Teesalu
Tambet
T
Thasler
Wolfgang
W
Trafford
Jacki
J
Van Der Valk
Jan
J
Von Versen
Rudiger
R
Weiss
Thomas
T
Womack
Chris
C
Ylikomi
Timo
T