BRAIN UK

• Research type

  Research Tissue Bank

• IRAS ID

  262890

• Research summary

  UK Brain Archive Information Network (BRAIN UK)

• REC name

  South Central - Hampshire B Research Ethics Committee

• REC reference

  19/SC/0217

• Date of REC Opinion

  4 Jun 2019

• REC opinion

  Favourable Opinion

• Data collection arrangements

  BRAIN UK is a virtual brain bank, cataloguing stored tissue and other biological samples from 26 Participating Centres to facilitate access for research. All Participating Centres are NHS Neuropathology Departments/Services and consequently, BRAIN UK includes all tissues/materials which are mainly from the brain and structures relating to the nervous system from both living and post mortem participants. Participating Centres maintain stewardship of the tissue samples and are responsible for obtaining consent, where appropriate, although this may not have explicitly included research purposes.

  BRAIN UK has access to approximately 500,000 cases, with an expected 18,500 cases being added to the archives each year. To attempt to obtain consent from this number of cases would be insupportable in terms of both time and expense so only anonymised data is sought and stored. Healthcare staff of the Participating Centre retrieve information to ensure anonymity to the Researchers. Minimal amounts of data is requested, such as age, diagnosis and patient gender. Where a donor or relative of a donor wishes to prevent the use of tissue or data for research purposes such wishes will be respected and removed from the BRAIN UK study.

• Research programme

  BRAIN UK has been supporting research focusing upon disorders of the brain and associated tissues since 2010 by providing a simplified and centralised means of accessing tissue samples held by NHS pathology centres after autopsy investigations into cause of death. In 2014, this was extended to include surgical specimens, broadening the range of diseases that can be studied (particularly brain tumours) and the depth of the available tissue resource to increase the number and quality of research studies that could be performed. This research involves the analysis of the effects diseases have within affected tissues and this is typically achieved through the use of specialised staining techniques to demonstrate the presence (or absence) of particular tissue and cellular components in disease when compared to normally functioning tissues. To date BRAIN UK has enabled over 116 projects including translational research (which converts basic scientific knowledge from animal models into practical applications to enhance human health), clinical research (to more reliable methods to prevent, detect and treat human disease) and epidemiological studies (to investigate how, when and where disease occurs).

• Storage license

  12413

• RTBTitle

  UK Brain Archive Information Network (BRAIN UK)