Ethical approval for use of human blood

Total Scientific have ethical approval in place which means that we can develop and optimise assays, using blood samples obtained from healthy volunteers, aimed at discovering or evaluating biomarkers of human disease.

Analyses or assays could involve any number of approaches, including some of the following examples:

• Identification and/or isolation of different populations or subpopulations of blood cells (e.g. leukocytes, platelets)
• Flow cytometry to examine expression of cell surface proteins
• Development or use of multiplex assays (using Luminex technology) or other assays for identification or measurement of biomarkers that will lead into preclinical and clinical phases
• Cell-based assays using isolated cell populations
• Analysis of cytokine expression or secretion (intracellular expression or secretion in tissue culture supernatants or in serum/plasma).

By obtaining and maintaining this ethical approval in advance, we markedly shorten your timescales for carrying out investigative biomarker experiments on freshly-obtained blood sample fractions from healthy human volunteers.