Cell and Tissue Banking

, Volume 10, Issue 2, pp 183–190 | Cite as

Training tissue bank operators: the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)/National University of Singapore (NUS) 10 years of experience

  • A. Nather
  • G. O. Phillips
  • Jorge Morales Pedraza
  • Chris C. W. Lee
Article
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Abstract

National University of Singapore (NUS) was appointed by IAEA to become IAEA/NUS Regional Training Centre (RTC) for Asia and the Pacific region in September 1996. The Government of Singapore (represented by the Ministry of Environment) with the National Science and Technology Board as the funding agency awarded a grant of S$225,500 to build a new purpose-built tissue bank to be the Regional Training Centre. National University Hospital provided a space of 2,000 square feet for this purpose. The first Diploma Course was launched on 3 November 1997 with 17 candidates with the first NUS Diploma Examination being held in October 1998. Between November 1997 and April 2007, a total of nine courses were conducted by RTC with a total of 180 tissue bank operators, 133 from Asia and the Pacific region (13 countries including 2 from Iran), 14 from Africa (Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Egypt, South Africa and Zambia), 6 from Latin America (Brazil, Chile, Cuba, Peru and Uruguay), 9 from Europe (Greece, Slovakia, Poland, Ukraine) and 2 from Australia. The last batch (ninth batch) involved twenty students registered in April 2007 and will be due to sit for the terminal examination only in April 2008.

Keywords

IAEA Singapore Training Tissue banks 
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Notes

Acknowledgment

The authors are grateful to Ms. J. Baharim for all the secretarial assistance provided in typing this manuscript.

References

  1. Nather A (1999) Tissue banking in the Asia Pacific region–the Asia Pacific association of surgical tissue bannking. In: Phillips GO, Strong DM, Von Versen R, Nather A (eds) Advances in tissue banking, vol 3. World Scientific, Singapore, pp 419–425Google Scholar
  2. Nather A (2000) Diploma training for the technologists in tissue banking. Cell Tissue Bank 1:41–44CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  3. Nather A, Phillip GO, Cheong HF, Ling MY (2001) Development of IAEA/NUS internet diploma course in tissue banking. J ASEAN Orthop Assoc 14:5–7Google Scholar
  4. Nather A, Phillips GO, Morales J (2003) IAEA/NUS distance learning diploma training course for tissue bank operators–past, present and future. Cell Tissue Bank 4:77–84PubMedCrossRefGoogle Scholar

Copyright information

© Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2008

Authors and Affiliations

  • A. Nather
    • 1
  • G. O. Phillips
    • 2
    • 3
  • Jorge Morales Pedraza
    • 4
  • Chris C. W. Lee
    • 5
  1. 1.NUH Tissue Bank, Department of Orthopaedic SurgeryNational University of SingaporeSingaporeSingapore
  2. 2.Phillips Hydrocolloids Research Ltd.LondonWales UK
  3. 3.Phillips Hydrocolloids Research CentreThe North East Wales InstituteWrexhamWales UK
  4. 4.ViennaAustria
  5. 5.Lee National University Hospital Tissue Bank, Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine National University of SingaporeSingaporeSingapore

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