Tissue Solutions

News New Human Skin Email Alert Service 26/11/11 Following the recent success of our hepatocyte alerts we are please to offer an e-mail alert for human skin. Through this service we can alert our clients when fresh healthy human skin is due to be collected as surgical excess during a cosmetic procedure. The tissues are suitable for drug discovery and development applications including drug permeation studies, skin irritation, toxicology models and for the isolation of primary and stem cells. Samples range from sheets of abdominal skin (full thickness and dermatomed), breast, foreskin, scalp, and occasionally from arm, eye lid and back. Clients who sign up to our service receive an e-mail as soon as we get a notification that the tissue is due to be collected, and can reserve samples on a first-come, first-served basis. The samples are shipped in your medium of choice along with detailed clinical donor information. In fast tracking these samples we can insure that none of this valuable tissue goes to waste and that fresh tissues are sent as quickly as possible so that tissue is of the very highest quality. If you would like to sign up for this service please click here or reply to this e-mail. We will only send an e-mail when samples are available and you can unsubscribe at any time.
Tissue Solutions Hepatocyte Alert List Goes Live 8/04/11 We are delighted to announce the introduction of our Hepatocyte Hotline. This is an e-mail based alert service that notifies researchers of the availability of fresh primary human hepatocytes. Each alert comes with an order form that can be completed and returned should a researcher require cells for a project and wish to place an order. Through this service we can offer fresh hepatocytes throughout Europe and East Coast USA. Mark Munro said, “Tissue Solutions have seen a significant increase in the demand for fresh hepatocytes and this service will help us provide greater access to these important cells and support in-vitro research.” If you would like to register for this service please click here.
Tissue Solutions Hepatocyte Alert List Goes Live 8/04/11 We are delighted to announce the introduction of our Hepatocyte Hotline. This is an e-mail based alert service that notifies researchers of the availability of fresh primary human hepatocytes. Each alert comes with an order form that can be completed and returned should a researcher require cells for a project and wish to place an order. Through this service we can offer fresh hepatocytes throughout Europe and East Coast USA. Mark Munro said, “Tissue Solutions have seen a significant increase in the demand for fresh hepatocytes and this service will help us provide greater access to these important cells and support in-vitro research.” If you would like to register for this service please click here.
Tissue Solutions Is Expanding! 03/10/11 Tissue Solutions are delighted to announce the appointment of Simon Goulding as a consulting Finance Director to the business and to welcome two new members of staff to the Business Development Team. Simon has held a number of high profile finance positions including, Chief Operating Officer at Campbell Dallas LLP, Head of Finance & Administration at Blandy & Blandy LLP and Finance Manager at Deloitte Consulting. While at Campbell Dallas, an accountancy firm with fees of £10M and 150 staff, he was responsible for the support functions with five direct reports in Finance, HR, IT, Marketing and Facilities managers. Simon will be responsible for the finance function at Tissue Solutions. Dr Morag McFarlane, Chief Scientific Officer, said: "I am delighted to announce Simon's appointment. He brings with him a wealth of financial experience in high profile roles and his proven track record will consolidate and further strengthen Tissue Solutions growth at this exciting time in the company's development." The Business Development Team is also set to expand with the addition of two new members of staff. Stuart Richards joins as an Assistant Business Development Graduate and Mark Munro as Business Development Manager. Stuart has a strong background in Life Sciences and studied for an MRes in Biomedical Sciences from Strathclyde University where he investigated the anti-inflammatory properties of Lovage (Levisticum Officinale). He has taken courses in Immunology and Ethics & Legal aspects in Research. He will support the team in their business activities and help in building strong customer relationships. Mark joins from UCB Pharma where he worked as a Senior Product Specialist. He has over fifteen years’ experience in Sales and Marketing in the Pharmaceutical industry and a proven track record in sales and account management. Mark will work closely with the CSO and COO to help implement new strategies for business growth and develop the external customer base. Commenting, Dr Ann Cooreman said: "These appointments demonstrate our continued commitment to the expansion and development of the company. We have seen turnover increase by 50% for the second consecutive year and are now in a position to recruit new staff to support this growth”. All of the new members of the team will start at the end of September.
Meet us a BioTrinity 2011 8/04/11 We will be in Newbury for the BioTrinity 2011 conference on the 13th and 14th April. This is now the largest gathering of the UK's bioindustry and is Europe's fastest growing biopartnering and investment conference. Our business development manager Dr Joan Telfer will be attending and would be happy to meet with you there.
Tissue Solutions and CompanDx Announce Agreement 30/03/11 Clydebank based Tissue Solutions and Nottingham based CompanDX have joined forces in a co-promotion and service agreement to provide clients in the Pharmaceutical and Biotech sectors with an unparalleled opportunity to link the supply of human tissues and biofluids to subsequent biomarker and target identification studies. Morag McFarlane, CSO of Tissue Solutions said, ‘This partnership provides a real opportunity to offer the industry a package that hasn’t been available before. To be able to conduct ex-vivo experiments using relevant clinical samples and then have the tools ready to distil out highly sensitive and specific biomarker panels is unparalleled.’ Other tools in CompanDX’s “Distiller” portfolio allow for unique pathways interactions maps to be produced showing the changes in gene interactions following differing treatments. Pre-clinical studies examining the effects of drug treatments on tissues or cells provided by Tissue Solutions can now be interrogated to reveal changes in expressed gene interactions, paving the way for co-therapy or therapy planning decisions. And CompanDX now has a route to allow clients to translate in silico studies to human ex-vivo data using the capabilities of Tissue Solutions to source a wide variety of annotated clinical samples from tissues and bloods, hair follicles, to urine and saliva. With increasing pressure on the Industry to reduce the cost and failure rate of clinical trials, methods that allow companies to predict response, identify toxicity issues and drug interactions are very much the order of the day. Dr Andy Sutton, CEO of CompanDx said, ‘The alliance between Tissue Solutions and CompanDX offers an exceptional opportunity for the industry to tap into resources and tools that provide a human centric approach and that could address the needs of an embattled sector.’
Meet our CSO at Biobanking London 2011 4/03/11 If you are attending the Biobanking 2011 meeting in London next week, from March 10 – 11 2011 we’d love to meet you! Morag, our CSO will be talking about the changing human tissue requirements for today’s drug discovery/development and biomarker research. Types of tissues and door information needed The growing role of biomarkers & personalised medicine Use of human primary cells It looks to be an interesting conference, exploring biobanking as a key driver for next generation biomarker and drug discovery and no doubt there will be some lively discussions about the current state, trends and most pressing issues in the field of biobanking! We look forward to seeing you in London next week. If you are not able to attend and would like to see Morag’s presentation, drop us a line and we will get one to you.
Tissue Solutions Granted Ethical Approval to Collect Psoriasis Skin Biopsies 7/2/11 Psoriasis is one of the most prevalent of all autoimmune diseases and the second most common skin diseases, the first being acne. 125 million people worldwide (2 to 3% of the total population) have psoriasis. Psoriasis is not a cosmetic problem. Nearly 60 % of sufferers report their disease to be a large problem in their everyday life. Currently there is restricted access to psoriatic lesions from human donors for research use. This is mainly due to the fact that psoriatic skin is not normally removed surgical as part of the medical treatment for the condition. Therefore in order to perform essential research on psoriatic skin, the only option is to ask patients to voluntarily donate skin biopsies, which are taken out with their normal treatment. Tissue Solutions now has UK ethical approval in place to collect biopsies from psoriasis patients. We can provide biopsies from lesions and normal skin from the same donor in either fresh or frozen formats. All samples will be fully anonymised and only donor data pertinent to the disease will accompany the samples such as age, gender, smoking, drinking and recreational drug habits, relatives with psoriasis, date of on-set, history of disease, severity of the disease, sampling site of each biopsy, history of treatment, other auto-immune disease, other co-morbidities such as diabetes, depression, etc. We can provide these samples on a prospective basis for our clients working on pre-clinical drug discovery and drug development supporting: Diagnostics Biomarkers research for evaluating drug efficacy and toxicology Xenograft models of psoriasis Translational medicine For further information and to discuss your project requirements please contact us: enquiries@tissue-solutions.com
Sign up to our newsletter! 1/02/10 Please sign up to our newsletter here!
Join us in Munich this November 1/11/10 Come and meet with Tissue Solutions at BioEurope on 15-17th November. Our COO, Ann, will be in Munich for this biopartnering event in Munich and will be happy to chat to you. This year’s event has a strong focus on biomarkers and personalized medicine.
Meet us at the World Biobanking Summit in Edinburgh, 24th and 25th August 19/08/10 Come and hear Morag talking at the World Biobanking Summit on the practical challenges associated with using banked and prospectively collected human tissue for research. Well a condensed version as she could talk for hours on this topic! This is co-located with Stem Cells Europe and the Cellular Therapy Summit.
Interest Group for the formation of a European Chapter of ISBER 15/06/10 Steps are being taken to form a European Chapter (or sub-division) of the biobanking society, ISBER. This chapter will provide all the services offered by the parent society but concentrated specifically in Europe. It will organise frequent and reasonably priced conferences and meetings, workshops and courses for the whole European biobanking community, including representatives of all kinds of biobank for human and non-human samples. It is proposed that the chapter will be led by a committee of individuals elected by the full membership of the chapter, each appointed for a fixed period of time. To ensure full involvement of the the European biobanking community from the earliest possible stage, a discussion group has been formed on LinkedIn. The name of the group is: Biobanking: European Chapter Interest Group (Go to: Groups, then Groups Directory, then search on the keyword “Biobanking”). You are cordially invited to join this interest group. If you are not yet a member of LinkedIn, then you would first need to register at www.linkedin.com. It is a very simple process and completely free. If there are any questions please contact either Robert Hewitt or Pasquale De Blasio.
Come and Meet Ann at ISBER 2010 in Rotterdam 20/04/10 Our COO, Dr Ann Cooreman will be attending the ISBER annual meeting which will be taking place in Rotterdam this year May 11-14 at De Doelen Concert Hall and Congress Centre. If you have some time in between visiting the Exhibits and attending the meetings and workshops, do try and find her for a chat.
New Sources for Supporting Oncology R & D added to our Network 25/03/10 Cancer Tissues with Short Cold (Post -surgical) Ischemia Times As you probably know, following tumour resection, ~25-30% of proteins and 20-25% of genes are differentially expressed within the first 30 minutes, so if you are trying to identify a key target in cancer then you want to get these tissues as soon as possible. So, we can now provide lung, prostate and colon frozen and fixed tissues with documented extremely short ischemia times of <8 minutes, on average, between resection and fixation. Similarly, serum, plasma and urine samples from donors with lung, prostate, colon and breast cancer, which have been instantly cooled to 4-8 °C at the collection site are available. No additives are used to ensure native composition so these can be used for all technology applications. Blood derived samples stay refrigerated and are processed and stored at – 80 °C within 4 hours after venous puncture. Access to Tissues from Familial and Population-based Breast, Ovarian & Prostate Cancer Cohorts We can now provide highly characterised breast, prostate and ovarian cancer tissues from a cohort of patients from "high risk" cancer families. They either have identifiable germline genetic fault e.g. BRCA1, BRCA2, p53, ATM, or some as yet unknown genetic mutations(s) linked to cancers being present in family members. Frozen or FFPE sections or slides are available complete with characterisation of key mutations. These samples have survival outcome linked to treatment if that is required. We also have access to a large fresh frozen and FFPE archival collection of normal breast and ovaries following prophylactic removal following routine surveillance advise. For further information on any of these or to discuss your needs, give us a call or contact enquiries@tissue-solutions.com
Meet us at BioPartnering North America - Vancouver 18/03/10 Come along and have a chat with our COO, Dr Ann Cooreman who will be attending BioPartnering North America in Vancouver, January 25-26. We have arranged many one to one meetings but feel free to contact Ann for an informal chat re how we can help with your tissue supply.
Hear us talk at Biobanking 2010 - London 18/03/10 Our CSO, Dr Morag McFarlane, talk at Biobanking 2010 in London on the 4th February. She will be discussing the challenges and hurdles associated with using banked and prospectively collected samples for research. She will cover the legal, ethical and consent requirements, harmonization of sample handling, access to clinical information/matched samples and the cost and time implications.
Meet us at BioPartnering North America - Vancouver 18/03/10 Come along and have a chat with our COO, Dr Ann Cooreman who will be attending BioPartnering North America in Vancouver, January 25-26. We have arranged many one to one meetings but feel free to contact Ann for an informal chat re how we can help with your tissue supply.
Tissue Solutions wins “Best New Business” 2009 18/03/10 At the Dumbartonshire Chamber of Commerce Awards ceremony in December 09, Tissue Solutions won the “Best New Business” award 2009.
Join us at the Molecular Tri-Conference – San Francisco 25/01/10 Tissue Solutions will be attending the Molecular Medicine Tri Conference at the Moscone Center in San Francisco on February 3-4. This conference is pretty comprehensive, covering diagnostics, biologics, cancer and translational medicine. If you are also attending then give us a call or email us to arrange to meet up face to face.
Hear us talk at Biobanking 2010 - London 25/01/10 Our CSO, Dr Morag McFarlane, talk at Biobanking 2010 in London on the 4th February. She will be discussing the challenges and hurdles associated with using banked and prospectively collected samples for research. She will cover the legal, ethical and consent requirements, harmonization of sample handling, access to clinical information/matched samples and the cost and time implications.
Meet us at BioPartnering North America - Vancouver 25/01/10 Come along and have a chat with our COO, Dr Ann Cooreman who will be attending BioPartnering North America in Vancouver, January 25-26. We have arranged many one to one meetings but feel free to contact Ann for an informal chat re how we can help with your tissue supply.
Tissue Solutions wins “Best New Business” 2009 25/01/10 At the Dumbartonshire Chamber of Commerce Awards ceremony in December 09, Tissue Solutions won the “Best New Business” award 2009.
Tissue Solutions named West of Scotland’s Most Promising Young Life Science Company 12/11/09 From brain cells to toenails, tissue samples are a vital part of the pharmaceutical development industry, and Tissue Solutions, the company that connects the suppliers and users of this key resource, has won Nexxus’ 2009 Most Promising Young Life Science Company Award for the West of Scotland. Drs Cooreman and McFarlane have built the business to function as a virtual model, supplying the precise types of tissues with detailed donor information that clients require for carrying out specialised work. They have established a network of reliable sources for human biological materials and formed alliances with specialist companies. This type of service allows companies to have a reliable source of specialised human tissue samples. Chief Scientific Officer Dr Morag McFarlane said: “Obviously we are very happy to win this award and to be recognised for our hard work over the last two years. We have built up a large portfolio of blue chip clients from scratch with no external investment. We want to make Tissue Solutions, and Scotland, a major focal point for high quality, ethical tissue provision on the worldwide stage. The NHS is greatly involved in this area too, which is good for Scotland in terms of strengthening its key role in supporting translational research.” Chief Operating Officer Ann Cooreman said: “There are so many people to thank who have been supportive and who have believed in us - Frank Rinaldi who put us forward for this Awards, Business Gateway, Scottish Enterprise, Scottish Development International, Nexxus, our clients and the people in our network who have all had a role to play. Mostly though we’d like to thank our other halves - Kerry and Paul - who were very patient (especially in the beginning!) and who have backed us all the way.”
Hear us Talk at the World BioBanking Summit! 10/9/09 Our COO, Dr Ann Cooreman, will be talking at the inaugural World Biobanking Summit in Edinburgh on the 24th-25th September, which is running alongside Stem Cells & Regenerative Medicine Europe. Ann will be presenting and leading a discussion on the “Practical Problems Caused by the Lack of Harmonisation in Regulation and Ethics." This is as part of a programme looking into the operations, trends and diversity of biobanking and other issues relating to the regulation and legislation of biobanks worldwide.
Meet us at Biobanking 2009 in London! 9/9/09 We are sponsoring the Biobanking 2009 conference (16-17th September, Thistle Marble Arch, London, UK). International leading minds from both biopharma and academia are meeting here to discuss the complete management of biomarker specimens for R&D. Areas covered include: importance of tissues for biomarker studies; harmonistation of regulations; sample storage and case studies. Please contact us to arrange a one to one meeting at the conference or pop by our stand for an informal chat.
We Have Moved!! 1/9/09 As part of our ongoing expansion plans, Tissue Solutions have moved to new premises. We are now based in the Titan Enterprise building, which has been built on the Queens Quay site of the former John Brown shipyards in Clydebank as part of an urban regeneration program, Clydebank Rebuilt. Our new address is Suite 29, Titan Enterprise, 1 Aurora Avenue, Queens Quay, Clydebank, G81 1QQ. You can now call us on +44 (0)141 951 7885 or send a fax to +44 (0)141 951 7886.
Human Pancreatic Islets! 14/7/09 We are now offering high quality well characterised fresh human pancreatic islets for research use. Islets are known to be very fragile and almost impossible to keep in tissue culture. This normally means that you have to work with them immediately and that if islets are shipped shortly after isolation a large proportion of them disintegrate during transportation. With the development of new islet culture media and the ability to hold islets in the cold this is no longer the case! By holding the islets in this new islet culture medium for a couple of days, the islets regain their integrity and do not fall apart with shipping in our transport medium. These have been shipped all over the US and to both Europe and Israel using this method with great results. If you would like more details on this, please give us a call or send us an email.
New Post Mortem Sources Added to our Network! 21/5/09 We have just signed agreements with two new post mortem sources in the US which allows us to supply their samples to our clients. The first is a large brain bank specializing in neurodegenerative disorders. This places us in a position to supply well-characterized brain samples with detailed clinical information from donors with disorders such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease, epilepsy, schizophrenia, head and spinal cord injury, addiction, depression, stroke, and chronic pain. The second is an organ procurement agency providing a range of normal and diseased post mortem human tissues for research use. We are now working with this group to provide the FDA panel of normal tissues for testing the specificity of new therapeutic antibodies.

“Working with specialist banks allows access to detailed donor information and in-house technical expertise.”