Imperial College Healthcare Tissue Bank

The Imperial College Healthcare Tissue and Biobank (ICHTB) infrastructure enables Imperial researchers to collect, store and use human tissue appropriately under a single Human Tissue Authority (HTA) licence (#12275) and Ethics approval (Wales REC 3 22/WA/0214). Tissue Access Requests are submitted for approval to the ICHTB Application Review Panel.

The ICHTB holds samples from patients with and without cancer; from all major specialities included neurology, cardiology, breast and endocrine, upper and lower gastrointestinal, urology, gynaecology, haematology, immunology and musculoskeletal. Sample types include frozen and FFPE tissue, blood and urine; amongst others. The ICHTB consists of a main surgical tissue bank of around 60,000 leftover surgical specimens; >500,000 subcollections of surgical and non-surgical samples held locally with researchers; and surgical specimens within the Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust diagnostic histopathology and post-mortem archives.

The ICHTB can provide additional medical and histopathology data by linking to Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust’s Electronic Healthcare Record. This allows researchers to conduct more in-depth research, as they can select the patient cohorts for their research based on factors such as disease indication, genotype or treatment.

The ICHTB technical team can establish bespoke prospective biobanking collection pathways upon request and provides a basic histopathology and DNA/ RNA extraction service.

For Imperial researchers wishing to collect samples under the ICHTB governance structure, the ICHTB provides approved consent forms and patient information sheets; and a bespoke database for anonymised donor sample tracking and traceability to ensure compliance with the HTA

More information on the ICHTB can be found here:

Website link: https://www.imperial.ac.uk/imperial-college-healthcare-tissue-bank/

Email: tissuebank@imperial.ac.uk

ICHTB Manager: Dr Leonie Powley, l.powley@imperial.ac.uk