The Human Tissue Act
The Human Tissue Act (2004) (HT Act) governs the storage and use of relevant material from the living and the removal, storage and use of relevant material from the deceased, for a scheduled purpose.
The Act focuses on both consent and licensing making consent fundamental to the removal, storage and use of human tissue for certain scheduled purposes.
Relevant material, as defined by the HT Act, is material from a human body (other than gametes*) which consists of or includes cells (including bodily waste products).
The following are excluded from the Act:
- hair and nail from the body of a living person;
- embryos outside the human body;*
- cell lines and other material created outside the human body;
- any sample that has been rendered acellular (i.e. not made up of cells) within seven days of initial sample receipt.
*Regulated by the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 1990.
A list of relevant material can be found on the Human Tissue Authority (HTA) website. This is not meant to be a full list. If you think you might need to use human tissue in your research, you should look for guidance from Human Tissue Authority website on where the classification of human tissue is unclear.
View the Human Tissue (Quality and Safety for Human Application) Regulations 2007
Find out more about the regulator for human tissue and organs