Epilepsy Society Brain and Tissue Bank

• Research type

  Research Tissue Bank

• IRAS ID

  320969

• Research summary

  Epilepsy Society Brain and Tissue Bank

• REC name

  South Central - Hampshire B Research Ethics Committee

• REC reference

  23/SC/0002

• Date of REC Opinion

  23 Mar 2023

• 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 from patients with epilepsy. The surgical tissue samples stored are surplus tissues from patients undergoing treatment for focal epilepsies at the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery London. These are mainly temporal lobectomy specimens including hippocampus 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 donated include whole fixed brains, tissue blocks of brain 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 summarizing the main applications of epilepsy tissue-based research projects. Consents for the post mortem samples are either obtained during life from patients on our donor register or following death through donation by their next of kin. We have appropriate consent forms and an information booklet on brain donation for epilepsy research. The consents and tissues are stored securely in the department of Neuropathology, Institute of Neurology which is an HTA licensed premises.

• Research programme

  Epilepsy is one of the most common, serious neurological disorders and this is the only established UK epilepsy brain and tissue bank. The tissue bank supports research into the cellular causes and effects of seizures and mechanisms of sudden and unexpected death in epilepsy. The tissue bank forms a point of contact for patients with epilepsy in the UK wishing to donate tissue for medical research. 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. Our tissue bank resource in the since establishment in 2013 years had provided tissue to local and leading international research groups leading to many publications in high impact journals including NEJM, Acta Neuropathologica and Lancet Neurology. The epilepsy tissue bank at the Institute of Neurology will also enables 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. For the epilepsy community, UK pathologists and Coroner's, an UK epilepsy tissue bank provides an established resource and point of contact should patients wish to donate tissue.

• Storage license

  12198

• RTBTitle

  Epilepsy Society Brain and Tissue Bank

• Establishment organisation

  UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology

• Establishment organisation address

  Queen Square

  London

  WC1N 3BG