Summary history of EATB
The EATB was inaugurated at a steering meeting in 1991, at the 1st European Conference on Tissue Banking, which was held in Berlin. There were 280 participants from 18 European Countries, who agreed that there was a need for an organisation to represent their activities in tissue banking. It was further agreed at that time that this would be called the European Association of Tissue Banks.
The founding President was Rüdiger von Vernon and the first Board was Dominique Poitout (France), Janusz Komender (Poland), Pavel Merika (Czechoslovakia), Heinz Winkler (Austria) and Glyn Phillips (UK). The original Association had 27 founding members representing 17 countries and by 1998 45 countries were represented.
There have been further EATB Boards headed by the following Presidents of EATB: Moishe Salai, Jan Koller and Ruth Warwick, following the Founding President’s tenure from 1992 – 2001.
There have been numerous conferences held annually from 1991 to date in many of the major European cities.
Major milestones of the EATB were:
- to produce important standards, contributions to consultations leading to regulation of the field of tissue banking throughout Europe;
- cooperation with national associations of tissue banking and with those in other countries,
- the development of the World Union of Tissue and Cell Banking (WUTCB) formed in 2004 in Rio de Janeiro;
- the development of postal voting for positions on the EATB Board, in 2006.
The Association is going from strength to strength and the next Congress will be held in Edinburgh in November 2008 at which you will all be welcome.
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