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First Page |
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The PDS Tissue Bank at Imperial aims to help understand what causes Parkinson's and assist in the development of better drug treatments by providing high quality brain tissue to researchers working in the field of Parkinson's and related neurological disorders. The Tissue Bank also aims to enhance the public's awareness of Parkinson's, promote the work of the Tissue Bank and increase the numbers of volunteers who are willing to sign up to the donor scheme. The Tissue Bank also aims to collect the tissue so that it is suitable for all research needs and that it is collected in the most ethical manner. |
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European Tissue Banks Working Together |
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The European Union (EU) has funded a network of excellence projects (Brain Net Europe II) where 19 Tissue Banks across Europe can start to work closer together. This involves the two disease dedicated Tissue Banks at Imperial College, namely the UK Parkinson’s Disease Society (PDS) Tissue Bank and the Multiple Sclerosis (MS) Tissue Bank, and 17 other tissue banks that collect tissue from a variety of neurological/neurodegenerative diseases. At the present time it is difficult for Tissue Banks to work together and share tissue etc since all of the Tissue Banks have different tissue collection, processing and storage procedures. The funding is for 5 years and will allow the Tissue Bank to identify “best practice” and harmonise procedures for processes like tissue collection and storage, and will also allow us to update and standardise neuropathological criteria/histological techniques for the identification of different neurological/neurodegenerative diseases. The range of techniques available for researchers is ever changing and it is important that Tissue Banks meet the demands of researchers. There are exciting techniques to examine our genetic makeup (our DNA), the genetic messages (mRNA) that instruct our cells to synthesise protein that are essential for their survival and the proteins themselves. However, at the present time, it is unclear whether such tests can be carried out on all of our existing tissue stocks across Europe. |
We need to find the optimum techniques for collection and storage of tissue so that we can preserve the sensitive cellular products that may reveal so much about Parkinson’s and other neurodegenerative disorders. The funding by the EU will allow a number of mini projects to be run across Europe to examine these issues. At Imperial College the PDS and MS Tissue Banks will work together to look at the mRNA stability in existing stocks of tissues and examine what are the best techniques for extracting and measuring the quality of mRNA obtained from these tissues. This will identify the most appropriate way of collecting and storing future tissue so that the mRNA can be best preserved for future research. It is hoped that in the future, this project will allow the sharing of tissue between Tissue Banks, particularly tissue from healthy donors that is in very short supply, so that more research can be carried out and on a greater number of subjects. If you want to read more about the Brain Network Europe II you can visit the web site at http://www.brainnet-europe.org/
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Tissue Bank Manager to Run Marathon |
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Dr Kirstin Goldring, the Tissue Bank Manager, is joining a team of runners doing the 25th London Marathon in aid of the PDS. If you would like to find how the sponsorship is going or would like to sponsor her please visit the website: www.justgiving.com/pdskgol “Being the manager of the Parkinson's Disease Society Tissue Bank, I know how important it is for the Society to raise money to help find a cure for Parkinson's Disease. Many people agree to donate their brains to the Tissue Bank, so the least I can do is run a marathon (in pink). I am going to put a lot of effort in to my training with the aim of doing it in under 5 hours this time. |
No promises, but I am really going to try and be faster and will put in the work to make it happen.” Watch out for the PDS runners on 17th April 2005.
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