About the HDBR
Collection
The HDBR was established in line with the ethical guidelines laid out in the Polkinghorne Report (Review of the Guidance on the Research Use of Fetuses and Fetal Material, 1989). Donations of tissue are made entirely voluntarily by women undergoing therapeutic termination of pregnancy. Donors are asked to give explicit written consent for the fetal material to be collected, and only after they have been counselled about the termination of their pregnancy.
Characteristics of the material
The HDBR can provide embryonic/fetal material from 24 post-conception days (5 weeks' gestation; Carnegie stage 11), up to 84 post-conception days (15 weeks gestation). A significant proportion of the material has been cytogenetically karyotyped, and normal karyotyped material is provided for research.
Material can be requested in a number of forms. Please contact the Resource Manager at hdbr@ncl.ac.uk or hdbr@ich.ucl.ac.uk for details.
Management of material
The tissue is held at the Institute for Child Health, London and the Institute of Human Genetics, Newcastle upon Tyne. It is intended for use primarily by academic researchers. The HDBR Joint Steering Committee is responsible for the overall management of the project and vets all applications to use material through a two-stage process. Applications are first considered by local committees at the HDBR centres in London and Newcastle, then reviewed at a biannual meeting of the HDBR Joint Steering Committee.
The HDBR makes every effort to ensure that optimal use is made of donated tissue, both in terms of the aims and quality of the research for which it is used and avoidance of duplication/wastage. Tissue may only be sent to applicants whose research has been granted ethical approval by the ethical committee of the applicant’s research institution.
User communities
The HDBR was set up primarily for use by the academic research community in the UK. Recently, this has been extended and applications from abroad are welcomed. For all users, if material to be sent out, local ethical approval for use of embryonic human tissue must be obtained .
From February 2004 HDBR has offered an In Situ Hybridisation Service that carries out gene expression studies at the collection centres on behalf of external registerd users.
The HDBR joint steering committee will consider applications by pharmaceutical or biotechnology companies for access to the Resource, provided that the tissue itself is not used directly for financial gain.