Do you need to find human post mortem organs, human post mortem tissues or anatomical parts, such as orthopedic joint specimens, from healthy donors or donors with a wide range of diseases or conditions and comorbidities to facilitate your research, development and training or education?
Find specimens
Availability:
We source human post-mortem tissues, bodily fluids and post mortem organs, including brain, CSF, gut/ intestines, bladder, heart, liver, kidney, bowel, lung, breast, prostate, eyes, skin, stomach & others, or anatomical tissues and parts such as bone, including spinal tissue, skull, muscle (skeletal muscles and smooth muscles), tendons, ligaments and orthopedic joint specimens, including normal joints and joints from donors with arthritis (osteoarthritis or rheumatoid arthritis), as well as urine samples and fecal samples/ stool samples, thanks to donors kindly participating in whole body donation programs for research & education.
The shortest post mortem interval available is 3 hours. However, such donors are very rare, so if you can extend the acceptable period to 12 or more hours from death to tissue sampling, it will greatly increase the rate of availability of suitable donors for your research. Information about degradation rates for various post mortem tissues and analytes may be available by performing a literature search.
Most human tissue samples will be collected prospectively for you, to ensure they meet your exact needs, rather than being stored in a tissue or organ bank/ biorepository /repository, but some tissues are banked, including some bone samples, hearts and certain cancer tissues which are banked. Please contact us to find out how our post mortem partner site can meet your research needs with cadaver tissue.
Serology results are available for each donor, although all human materials must be treated as potentially infectious.
Formats:
- Post mortem human tissue specimens/ post mortem organs can be provided fresh in the buffer or medium of your choice, on ice or cold packs
- Post mortem tissue samples/ organs can be frozen (snap frozen/ flash-frozen in liquid nitrogen initially or fresh-frozen by being placed straight into -80 or on dry ice)
- Post mortem tissues/ organs can also be fixed in 10% NBF (neutral buffered formalin)
- Whole blood samples can be removed at the same time & shipped in the tubes of your choice either fresh or frozen.
The human specimen size provided depends on your requirements; whole organs or tissues are available, or small parts, as well as anatomical parts.
Disease types:
Normal post mortem tissue samples and samples from a wide range of diseases can be collected. The availability of the whole organ, particularly in the case of diseases where both diseased & healthy tissue may be present in different areas of the same organ (such as a breast cancer tumor within the breast), facilitates the evaluation of disease in situ.
Disease areas include:
Oncology (including breast cancer, lung cancer, bowel cancer (colorectal cancer - CRC), prostate cancer, endometrial cancer, cervical cancer, liver/ hepatic cancer, kidney cancer, pancreatic cancer, head & neck cancer, thyroid cancer and other cancer samples).
Inflammatory
Degenerative
Orthopedicsamples
Cardiovascular
Metabolic, such as diabetes
others...
Locations:
Our post mortem donor partner sites are located in the US.
Please contact us on This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Tissue and organ types:
Digestive system:Mouth Teeth / jaw Tongue samples/ whole Salivary glands samples/ whole Parotid glands samples/ whole Submandibular glands samples/ whole Sublingual glands samples/ whole Pharynx whole Esophagus samples/ whole Stomach samples/ whole Small intestine samples/ whole Duodenum samples/ whole Jejunum samples/ whole Ileum samples/ whole Large intestine samples/ whole Liver samples/ whole Gallbladder samples/ whole Pancreas samples/ whole |
|
Nervous system:
Respiratory system:
Nose samples/ whole
Pharynx whole
Larynx whole
Trachea whole
Bronchi samples/ whole
Lungs samples/ lobe/ whole
Diaphragm
Urinary tract:
Kidney samples/ renal samples
Ureters samples/ whole
Bladder samples/ whole
Urethra samples/ whole
Endocrine glands:
Pituitary gland whole
Pineal gland whole
Thyroid gland samples/ whole
Parathyroid glands whole
Adrenal glands whole
Pancreas samples/ whole
Circulatory system:
Cardiovascular -
Heart samples/whole
Artery samples
Vein samples
Capillaries
Blood, serum, plasma, buffy coat samples
Lymphatic system -
Lymphatic vessel samples/ whole
Lymph node samples/ whole
Bone marrow samples
Thymus samples/ whole
Spleen samples/ whole
Sensory organs:
Eye -
Cornea
Iris
Ciliary body
Lens
Retina
Ear -
Eardrum
Middle ear
Ossicles
Inner ear
Cochlea
Vestibule of the ear
Semicircular canals
Integumentary system:
Skin
Subcutaneous tissue
Mammary glands
Musculoskeletal tissue system:
Muscle tissue samples/ whole
Tendons samples/ whole
Ligaments samples/ whole
Joints samples/ whole
Bones samples/ whole
Skull
Spine samples/ whole
Reproductive organs:
Female reproductive tract:
Ovaries whole/ ovarian samples
Fallopian tubes
Uterus samples/ whole
Vagina
Vulva
Clitoris
Placenta samples/ whole : only available from living, clinical donors
Male reproductive tract:
Testes samples/ whole
Epididymis
Vas deferens
Seminal vesicles
Prostate samples/ whole
Bulbourethral glands
External sex organs
Penis
Scrotum
Please contact us on This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. to find out how we can facilitate your research.
Please note that unfortunately, we are unable to offer organs for transplant, as the donors participating in this program are unable to donate for this purpose, due to age or infirmity. Therefore, this type of organ donation in no way competes with the essential work of organ/tissue transplantation, whilst facilitating important research, development and training/ education. We can not accept tissues directly from donors; if you are interested in donating, please discuss ways of donating with your physician, hospital or hospice, who will be better placed to provide information about local donation options. Thank you very much for considering this option.