Human tissues for research purposes: a conference in the House of Lords

The challenges to using human tissues in research are many and varied. However, there is little consensus on how concerns raised by researchers should be addressed, and who should be responsible for ensuring that patients continue to benefit from medical research carried out using human tissues which have been ethically donated or collected after surgery, or where organs donated for transplant are unsuitable for this purpose. A conference in the House of Lords sought to bring together stakeholders from all areas of human tissue research to discuss the problems experienced, share solutions, and form a Working Party to carry the conference momentum forward into action in the near future.