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Human Tissue Act 2004

The Human Tissue Act 2004 states that "material, other than gametes, which consists of or includes human cells" may not be stored or used without the consent of the person from whose body it was taken and, in addition, may not be stored without a licence from the Human Tissue Authority.

The University does not hold a licence under the Act, but a licence is held by the Department of Food & Nutritional Sciences for this purpose. Researchers proposing to store such material will either need to do so in conjunction with the Department of Food & Nutritional Sciences, or will need to gain approval from an NHS Research Ethics Committee, which will confer exception from the licensing requirement. "Storage" is defined by the Human Tissue Act as the maintaining of the material under controlled conditions.

The following link provides a summary of the effect of the Human Tissue Act 2004 (PDF-125kb)

Security-sensitive material

If you are accessing security-sensitive material you need to refer to this policy and process. You should not access such material until approval has been given. The 'Access by staff and students to security-sensitive material' policy can be found on the Academic and Governance Services Policies website here.

Governance and Quality Assurance for Research

The University views ethical scrutiny of research projects as an integral part of its procedures for the Governance and Quality Assurance for Research (QAR). Please see the Quality assurance in research website for more information.