In India, it is mainly the living donors who are donating organs and only about 23% of the organ transplant is being done with organs obtained from the cadavers. There is a need to promote cadaver or deceased organ donation rather than relying on living donors in order to avoid the risk of organ trading and also to avoid the inherent risk to the health of the living donor. In view of this, National Biomaterial Centre (National Tissue Bank) was inaugurated in February at the National Organ and Tissue Transplant Organization (NOTTO) with the objective of filling up the gap between ‘demand’ and ‘supply’ as well as ‘quality assurance’ in the availability of various tissues. There is a need to spread awareness in the community at large, that a living person can save the life of only one person but a deceased or cadaver organ donor can save up to 9 lives by donating vital organs.

The activities of the Centre will include coordination for tissue procurement and distribution, donor tissue screening, removal of tissues and storage, preservations of tissue, laboratory screening of tissues, tissue tracking, sterilization, records maintenance, data protection and confidentiality, quality management in tissues, patient information on tissues, development of guidelines, protocols and standard operating procedures, trainings and assisting as per requirement in registration of other tissue banks.