Tissue Solutions

News 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.”