First International Conference on Legal and Ethical Aspects of Research using Human Tissue

The acronym Tiss.EU stands for “Evaluation of Legislation and Related Guidelines on the Procurement, Storage and Transfer of Human Tissues and Cells in the European Union — an Evidence-Based Impact Analysis”. The project’s aim is to assess the impact made by European Union’s regulatory activities to date on research in the member states (plus Switzerland). To this end, the project will gather and compare national legislative instruments and guidelines with the help of external experts and make these data available to the public. As a culmination of the project, recommendations are to be drafted for possible ethical and legal guidelines in the interests of European-wide convergence and harmonisation.

The project's First International Conference will take place in Göttingen, Germany, from 26th to 28th June 2008. Expert presentations and debates will take place in relation to the following thematic areas:

* Ethical & legal regulations regarding the procurement, storage and transfer of tissue and cells for research;
* Rights and entitlements to tissue and cells;
* Anonymisation and pseudonymisation to protect privacy rights;
* Ethical & legal aspects of research with biobanks;
* National regulations in the field of research with human tissue in individual EU member states.

The conference is organised by:
The Department for Medical Ethics and History of Medicine, University of Goettingen
Dr Christian Lenk, Dr des Katharina Beier and Prof Dr Claudia Wiesemann

More information on the project is available at: http://www.tisseu.uni-hannover.de(opens in new window)