The IAEA programme on radiation and tissue banking is part of a major effort to establish and improve tissue banks in Member States (MS).
The IAEA Coordinated Research Project (CRP) E31006 on “Safety and optimisation of radiation sterilization in tissue banking: Studies on functional properties of irradiated tissue grafts” was started in 2010 and completed in 2015. Sixteen participating institutions from 15 countries participated in the project.
Five main categories of research topics were studied: bone, demineralized bone, cartilage allograft, skin and amnion. The use of tissue allografts in surgical procedures has increased tremendously over the last two decades. Radiation has been used to sterilize tissue allografts on a large scale. Controversies exist regarding the optimal dosage required since radiation may also compromise tissue allograft integrity and/or its biological function. Tissue banks use radiation doses just based on empirical and/or historical data or use a fixed dose of 15 or 25 kGy for all tissue allografts. Moreover, radiation conditions differ strongly from institute to institute, which may influence the efficacy of the radiation treatment. In order to improve the knowledge on radiosterilization of tissue allografts, new and additional studies were designed and conducted under controlled and validated conditions. This new knowledge will lead to an optimization of the radiation sterilization process/procedures.
Since 2010, significant progress has been made by the participating tissue banks/institutes leading to the production of safer allografts both with respect to functionality and sterility.
This project has led to another CRP F23030-E31007 ”Instructive Surfaces and Scaffolds for Tissue Engineering Using Radiation Technology” from 2014 through 2019. Tissue engineering is revolutionising medicine by shifting the focus from addressing symptoms to repair and regeneration. Regenerative medicine is an emerging field that seeks to combine the knowledge and expertise of diverse disciplines towards the aim of restoring impaired organ functions in the body. The main goal of the project is to engineer instructive scaffolds and surfaces using radiation technology to create tissues from autologous and allogeneic human somatic cells to provide tissue grafts and decrease the need for human donors.
For more information, please see the CRP description: