When notified of the death of one of our registered donors, we begin making arrangements to collect the tissue. If during work hours, the Tissue Bank can be contacted on the office telephone number (020 8383 4917). If it is out of hours, or if unable to get through to one of our team, the emergency bleep number (07659 10 45 37) is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

We have two cut-off times for retrieving tissue. If within 24 hours of death, we can take the tissue 'fresh'. The sequence of events in this instance is as follows:

1. Death of registered donor
2. Tissue bank informed by someone telephoning 07659 10 45 37 (24-hours)
3. A member of the Tissue Bank phones back immediately for further details*
4. Death certified by GP or hospital doctor*
5. Body transported to hospital nearest to the place of death*
6. Pathologist and post mortem technician at the hospital retrieves the tissue*
7. Member of the team travels to hospital to collect tissue*
8. Body returned to undertakers for the funeral*
9. Tissue brought back to Charing Cross Hospital for processing and storage* (see Laboratory section for more details)

If betwen 24 and 48 hours of death, the tissue has to be 'fixed', or immersed in formalin to preserve it as soon as it is taken. The reason for this is that the tissue deteriorates over time. If it deteriorates too badly, it is useless for research. Preserving it in formalin means that it can still be used for some projects. There are some techniques, however, that can only be used on fresh tissue, which is why we try to keep the post-mortem delay as short as possible. More than about 48 hours after death, the tissue has generally deteriorated too much to be of use for research.

The sequence of events for retrieving fixed tissue is the same for fresh, up until step 6, and then it diverges:

7. Tissue immediately preserved in formalin
8. Body returned to undertakers for the funeral*
9. About 4 weeks after retrieval, arrangements made for the fixed tissue to be couriered the Tissue Bank
10. Processing, neuropathological characterisation and storage (see Laboratory section for more details)

(All arranged by a member of the Tissue Bank Team.)

To ensure that we are able to collect tissue out-of-hours, we have a 24 hour 'on-call' rota. The on-call team consists of a co-ordinator and two assistants. the co-ordinator is the point of contact, and makes all the arrangements. If it is possible to take the tissue "fresh", the co-ordinator will also generally collect it (although this may fall to one of the assistants) and the assistants set up the dissection laboratory and take part in the dissection. (The co-ordinator is the primary dissector.)

If during work hours, tissue procurement is the responsibility of the tissue bank staff. Out of hours, it falls to the on-call team.

Clinical History

The clinician and neuropathologists together write a neuropathological report on the case. A copy of this is sent to the donor's/next-of-kin's GP. The donor's next-of-kin is advised when the report is sent out, so they can make an appointment to discuss the findings with the GP, if they wish.

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