The Human Tissue Bank is the Model Project of the Sri Lanka Eye Donation Society& International Atomic Energy Agency implemented in Sri Lanka. This acceptance of the Tissue Bank as a model project is the culmination of a series of events. In Sri Lanka, we had envisaged the establish of a Tissue Bank to serve the people of the country over 20 years. It appeared to be the natural progress of the eye
donation movement, which itself started way back in 1959 for the purpose of providing donor corneas for the Eye Hospital in Colombo. We had established ourselves as a major source of donor eyes to the world by the time the first Tissue Bank conference was held in Bombay in 1983. At that crucial meeting Sri Lanka was represented by Dr. Hudson Silva. He described what we had achieved in donation of eyes; and mentioned that a tissue bank is the next natural step. The prime movers of the Conference Prof Glyn O Phillips of UK and Dr Ramen Mukherjee of the Life Sciences Division of IAEA recognised the potential of Sri Lanka as the best place in the Asia Pacific Region to have a tissue bank. The Human Tissue Transplantation Act No 48 was passed in 1987. So the tissue procurement and transplantation is legal in Sri Lanka. This act has stipulated the terms and conditions under which the extraction, processing, storage, retrieval and utilisation of human tissues should performed in Sri Lanka. It has covered all the legal requirements protecting donors, doctors and recipients. The MHTB conforms to all these regulations. Its Board of Management includes top level officials appointed by the Health Ministry. The operations of the facility full fill the needs of Sri Lanka hospitals as well as foreign hospitals . The Model Project SRL/7/003 approved by IAEA envisages a multi-tissue bank dealing with all donor tissues including amnion, skin, bones, soft tissues (including tendons, ligaments, pericardium, fascia lata and eye sclera). Our plan is to obtain all donor tissues and make them available nationally, regionally and internationally.
