The Sydney Brain Bank (SBB) focuses on collecting the brain and spinal cord from healthy aged donors as well as those with neurodegenerative conditions.
Brain tissue is usually collected within 48 hours of death. Details of age at death, gender, disease duration and postmortem interval accompany all samples.
Where possible, one hemisphere of the brain is frozen to enable subsequent proteomic and genomic analysis while the other half is fixed in formalin for 2 weeks for tissue characterisation and subsequent histological studies. In cases with vascular or other asymmetric pathology both hemispheres are fixed to enable thorough characterisation to be carried out.
Cases are grouped into cohorts to facilitate research studies and collaboration. Please note that the entire cohort may not be available for your specific research purposes. Factors that affect the number of available cases include:
Please consider these factors when completing the request enquiry form. You will need to detail the specific tissue requirements (i.e. regions(s) and amount), justify the number of cases requested and provide a brief project outline. The tissue manager will assess your request and confirm whether the tissue requested is available and provide an estimate of the cost of acquiring such tissue. Please note that full justification of the numbers required for your specific research question needs to be made with a credible power analysis.
For information about how the tissue is characterised, please contact the Sydney Brain Bank.