Epilepsy Society Brain and Tissue Bank

• Research type

  Research Tissue Bank

• IRAS ID

  234762

• Research summary

  Epilepsy Society Brain and Tissue bank (ESBTB).

• REC name

  South Central - Hampshire B Research Ethics Committee

• REC reference

  17/SC/0573

• Date of REC Opinion

  19 Jan 2018

• REC opinion

  Further Information Favourable Opinion

• Data collection arrangements

  The Epilepsy Society Brain and Tissue archive is a tissue bank to promote cell-based research into the causes and effects of epilepsy. We store both surgical and post-mortem tissue samples. The surgical tissue samples stored will be surplus tissue from patients undergoing treatment of epilepsy, mainly following temporal lobectomy or other cortical or tissue resections. This is stored as formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded tissue blocks, slides and frozen tissue samples. In addition cell and slice cultures, DNA, RNA and protein samples may be generated from these samples. The tissue from post-mortems includes whole fixed brains, tissue blocks and frozen tissue samples, including samples of organs in some cases.
  The consents from living donors are collected pre-operatively following reading of an information sheet summarising the main applications of epilepsy tissue-based research projects. For the post-mortem samples, consents were obtained during life (from patients on our donor register) or from the next of kin, following death ; we we have appropriate information sheets for both these situations. The consents and tissues are stored securely in the department of Neuropathology, Institute of Neurology in accordance with HTA requirements. 181 words

• Research programme

  Epilepsy is one of the most common, serious neurological disorders and this is the only established UK epilepsy brain bank. The National Hospital has had an active epilepsy surgical program since the early 1990’s and also has the largest collections of post mortem epilepsy brain tissue in the UK. These tissues are currently archived in the department of Neuropathology, at the National Hospital. Our resource in the last five years had enabled provision of tissue to local and leading international research groups and has lead to publications in high impact journals including NEJM, Acta Neuropathologica, Glia and Brain in the last two years alone. Our research group is part of the NIH funded 'Centres for research into sudden and unexpected death in epilepsy' (CSR http://csr.case.edu/index.php/Main_Page),the commonest cause of epilepsy related death. The epilepsy tissue bank at the Institute of Neurology will also enable research networks carrying out clinico-pathology studies through the UK and strengthen ongoing collaborative studies with other research groups in Europe and USA, particularly important for the study of rarer pathologies. We are part of the European Epilepsy Brain Bank Network. For the epilepsy community, UK pathologists, Coroner's and neuroscience researchers, an UK epilepsy tissue bank provides an established resource and point of contact should patients wish to donate tissue or find out more about the goals and achievements of epilepsy research.

• Storage license

  12198

• RTBTitle

  Epilepsy Society Brain and Tissue bank (ESBTB).

• Establishment organisation

  Institute of Neurology, UCL

• Establishment organisation address

  Queen Square

  London

  WC1N 3BG