News and blogs from Ethical Tissue
You can find notable news articles relating to the Ethical Tissue below.
Tales from the Tissue Bank
Read our interview with Ethical Tissue manager, Parisa Naeem as she talks about her new role and previous experience in Biomedical Sciences.
The impact of Covid19 on our services
The Covid19 pandemic has impacted the ability for Ethical Tissue to supply tissues to researchers. Most people will be aware that elective operations were suspended in many hospitals and clinics, however, these restrictions are now being lifted and we are back to operating a near normal service.
Frozen skin tissues are available to researchers who can use frozen skin for studies, such as skin penetration studies. In addition, we continue to support researchers studying Covid19 by providing Phlebotomy services for blood samples.
The Bradford 'tooth fairy' project update
Dr Julia Beaumont, biological anthropologist at the University of Bradford has developed a (now widely-used) method for analysing the dietary history of children using the dentine in their teeth. By using archaeological teeth, she has identified changes in diet that are characteristic of breastfeeding and weaning, and also markers for Famine. She is now working with modern teeth from across the world to confirm her findings and also to identify potential markers for nutritional stress around birth and during infancy in the only accessible tissue which retains information about life pre- and post-birth.
Over the last two years, Ethical Tissue, supported by NHS Portfolio funding, have been collecting teeth which have been extracted as part of routine NHS dental treatment. Over 200 children and their parents consented to donate their teeth, along with detailed medical and breastfeeding history, to the project. Some initial results were published in 2020 (Beaumont) which shows the differences between breast-fed and non-breast-fed children. As the data analysis nears completion, the data can be compared to the questionnaire sheets to understand diagnostic potential in the patterns recorded. Project funded by the Rank Prize Funds New Investigator Award and sponsorship from DB Orthodontics, Bradford.
The Tooth Fairy study was carried out under HRA ethical approval, IRAS project ID is 200244
Beaumont J. The Whole Tooth and Nothing but the Tooth: Or why Temporal Resolution of Bone Collagen May Be Unreliable. Archaeometry. 2020; https://doi.org/10.1111/arcm.12544.
Dr Julia Beaumont representing the Bradford Tooth Fairy Project